


The Pleasures of the Damned

by blackmountainbones



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Drug Abuse, Gay Sex, Headcanon, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Oral Sex, Poorly negotiated BDSM, Religion, Swearing, bangbangbangbang, butt stuff, everyone is an addict, so much swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-05-25 09:01:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6188356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmountainbones/pseuds/blackmountainbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Quixioti's "Each the Other's World Entire". Couldn't get the work out of my head, I guess it's an ode to the fandom and all you filthy Mac/Dennis shippers, degenerates all!<br/>I stole the title from Charles Bukowski's selected works because nothing I do is original. It's three in the afternoon and I'm drinking straight tequila on the rocks. I regret nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. only losers go to school

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quixoti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixoti/gifts).
  * Inspired by [each the other's world entire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2724503) by [quixoti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixoti/pseuds/quixoti). 



> warning: this fic depicts terrible people being terrible. the whole gang are multiple drug abusers and alcoholics with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. half this fic is extremely graphic smut. the other half depicts an almost certainly abusive relationship involving abusive people.
> 
> chapters 1-5 edited 3/21/16, mostly for grammar, and also the fact that i drink and post.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Only losers go to school  
> I taught myself how to move  
> I'm not the type to count on you  
> 'Cause stupid's next to 'I love you'
> 
> No--
> 
> So what can you show me  
> That my heart don't know already  
> We make our own sense  
> And you're qualified to me..."  
> \--The Weeknd, Losers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How it all began. Senior year of high school. The gang is 17/18 here, so not quite underage.

The day Dennis corners him behind the dumpster is not the first time he’s talked to Mac; maybe it’s not even the longest conversation they’ve had. But it’s the first conversation that Mac really remembers between the two of them, just the two of them.

He’d come out there to skip algebra and get high--he might as well make a little money if he wasn’t going to learn anything today. Dennis wants to smoke but has no cash on him, promises to pay him back tomorrow.

“Relax, dude. I was coming out here to get high myself--I’ll spot you.” Mac wiggles the brick out of the wall to reveal his personal stash, removing his papers and some herb.

Dennis watches him closely as he grinds the herb up, then rolls the weed into a cigarette, clearly impressed with Mac’s ability to roll a perfect joint in seconds. Mac gets the sense that this is something illicit for him, whereas Mac had a part-time job bagging meth for his dad before his dad went to jail last year, so it's all relative.

He doesn’t remember much about that afternoon--only the sun and the yellowing grass of the field and Dennis beside him, blonde and glowing, like the "Golden God" he calls himself.

Over the fall, they become friends. Mac isn't quite sure when this happens, all he knows is that Dennis shows up behind the dumpster more and more often that fall. They get high, they talk about _Thundergun_ and more often than not, they sit quietly in the sun watching the leaves turn to dust. It is an easy togetherness, something Mac has only had with Charlie before this. It's nice to have another friend.

In October, Mac gets his hands on some LSD. It's not something he usually carries, and he can tell Dennis is intrigued; he can also tell Dennis has never done any drug harder than pot and sometimes his mom's pills. When he shows Dennis the sheet of paper with the purple grinning cat on it, Dennis reaches for it, saying, "Let me try that."

"I can't give you some now, dude. If you take this, you'll be out of your mind for like ten hours."

Dennis pauses, considering. "Come on Sunday, then. My parents and Dee are leaving for a cruise in the morning, and the next day is Columbus Day. We'll have the place to ourselves for like, a whole week." And so help him, God, but Mac accepts his invitation, ignoring his conscience, which insists _nothing good can possibly come from this._

 

 

And that's how Mac ends up with Charlie and Dennis, letting a small square of paper dissolve on his tongue in Dennis's living room, which is practically the size of Mac's whole apartment. The couch looks like it's real leather instead of the stuff they sell at autobody shops reupholstered into it with a staple gun (his mother is resourceful in her home improvements as she is in her auto-body repair) and the TV is like five times as big as the one in Mac's room. He's never been to a house this nice before, and is embarrassed for himself and Charlie and their dirty clothes.

While they wait for the acid to kick in, the three of them build a fire in the backyard fire pit. It's a good idea--it's already starting to get cold at night, and the fire will give them something to look at while they trip.

Two hours later, he's losing his mind. This stuff is way stronger than any other acid he's had--he can't stop staring at the fire and how it flickers across his friends' faces, changing them into grotesque shapes.

They sit in the backyard, watching the fire and drinking beer, staring into nothing. Mac hears the trees whispering as the flames jump, but he can't understand what they're trying to say. Dennis goes to grab another beer but the box is empty.

"Jesus Christ, we've had an entire case of beer and I feel... nothing. I am tripping balls, but I can't seem to get drunk."

"Yeah," Charlie agrees. "I don't think the alcohol is working." He takes a long sip of his beer, then belches. "Nope, nothing."

Mac stands on his feet, surprised at how steady he is after eight beers.  "I don't feel drunk, but I'm pretty sure I drank all those beers. I have to piss like a motherfucker."

"There's a bathroom down the hall from the kitchen. Second door on the right," Dennis says. Mac can feel his expression right now--it's completely blank and confused as he tries to make sense of Dennis's directions.

"Oh Christ, I'll show you," Dennis says, dragging Mac by his arm into the house.

All the lights are off inside, but Mac's night vision is sharp. He lets Dennis guide him anyway, enjoying his friend's warm hand on his bicep. They're in the hallway, and Dennis nudges him against a door, his hand slipping down Mac's chest and his hot palm resting on the crotch of his pants.

When Dennis squeezes, Mac groans and jumps, knocking his skull on the doorframe as he tries to slide away. Dennis steps away from him, and flicks on the light. His skull swims with stars and for the first time, Mac notices that the hallway downstairs is panelled with some kind of light wood. The knots in the wood blink like eyes.

Mac opens the door to the bathroom. There's no wood in here, but it's even worse--the tiles on the wall are blinking at him. There's no way he can piss in here, with hundreds of eyeballs looking at him; he can barely piss in the bathrooms at school. Immediately, he zips his jeans back up and runs out of the house, nearly crashing into his friends with at breakneck speed.

"Dude! You're freaking out," Charlie laughs.

“No, no way, I can't pee in there. _The walls have eyes. They can see me."_

"The walls do not have eyes. You're on drugs," Dennis insists.

"No way. I'm not going into that house again! I'm going to piss behind that tree."

"Mac, don't be weird."

Charlie interrupts him. "Dennis, man, I don't know if you understand how drugs work. _The whole point of this is to get weird."_

"Look dudes, that's great and all, but I'm not gonna piss myself here. I'm going to pee on that tree." Mac points to a big tree at the corner of the yard.

"Mac, dogs piss on trees. Humans use the bathroom."

"Not going in there until the walls shut their eyes," Mac insists.

"Fine! Just face away from us so we don't have to see your junk."

Mac knows Charlie and Dennis will make fun of him for being scared of the walls and probably the size of his dick, but right now he doesn't care about that as long as he can stay away from the eyes while he urinates.

While he pisses against the tree, Mac remember's Dennis's hand on his dick in the dark, and wonders if he was imagining his touch the same way he must be imagining the eyes in the wood on the walls. But both seem so real, he can't quite make himself believe that neither are true.

 

 

It’s four thirty in the morning before the effects of the acid start to wear off. Mac's brain feels like jelly, and making his feet move requires an excruciating amount of effort. He and Dennis are standing in the kitchen, drinking orange juice. Charlie had passed out on the floor of Dennis's bedroom in a pile of blankets and coats a couple of hours ago, but Mac has no idea how Charlie can possibly sleep. His mind is still going warp speed, even though he doesn't see eyes in the walls anymore.

"What was going on earlier dude, with the eyes?" Dennis asks him.

"I don't know, bro, they were just there, looking at me--I was _tripping balls_. Didn't you see anything?"

Dennis nods. "But just like, patterns and stuff. Not eyes coming out of walls. How many hits did you take?"

"Two," Mac lies.

"Bullshit."

"Okay, three." He'd taken four.

"Whatever," Dennis chugs the orange juice straight from the carton. "Anyway I only had one." He burps. Mac laughs--it's the first time he's ever caught Dennis Reynolds doing something inappropriate. "You want the rest?" Dennis offers.

"Yeah, man. We drank so much beer and I'm still so damn thirsty." Mac drinks the rest of the juice in one gulp.

"Tell me about it, I think I'm drunk now," Dennis says, swaying a little. "Pretty sure I need to sleep it off."

Mac's body aches with exhaustion but his mind is racing from the effects of too much acid. Four hits of this stuff was waaaay too much to take all at once. _Maybe lying down in the dark would make me feel better,_ he reasons, so he follows Dennis upstairs to his bedroom. When Dennis opens the door, they can hear Charlie snoring from his pile of blankets on the floor.

"Hey man, can I just get a blanket and a pillow? I'll sleep right here," he says.

"Mac. Don't be stupid," Dennis says. "You don't want to sleep on the floor with Charlie." He climbs under the covers, and Mac stands there next to the bed, sweating. _A mattress would feel better than the floor,_ and his whole body is too tired to make the argument otherwise. Why is his heart pounding as he lies down next to Dennis, in that big bed that's practically the size of his room at home?

Mac lies in the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to sleep, but his brain is still on fire. "Dennis?" he asks.

"Yeah?"

Mac turns on his side, facing his friend. Dennis's face is alarmingly close and his eyes are alarmingly blue, but it could just be the acid making everything this vivid. "My head's on fire."

"Mine too," Dennis breathes. His face is so close Mac can taste the words as he speaks them. The moment lingers, and they watch each other's faces in the dark.

To this day, Mac isn't sure who closes the space between their mouths, if it was him or Dennis. He wants to believe it was Dennis, working his unholy magic, Dennis the devil in a button down shirt. For a terrible moment, Mac suspects he did, but it all happens too quickly to be sure.

Dennis's mouth tastes like cigarettes and beer and regret. Mac tastes his own guilt rising behind his tonsils as he chokes on Dennis's mouth, sloppy and inexperienced but eager. It's his first kiss, and his second, and his third--clumsy and overeager and wet, he keeps pausing to breathe. Then Charlie murmurs in his sleep on the floor, and Mac's blood turns cold. He turns away from Dennis, lying on his side facing away from him. When Dennis puts his arm on his shoulder, Mac stares into the darkness in front of him. He hears Dennis sigh and turn away, his breathing becoming regular as Charlie mumbles on the floor.

It's a long time before Mac sleeps. His heart is pounding and he hears his blood rushing through his veins as shapes rise out of the darkness. His skin is hot, so hot, and everything is in flames or on fire and this is partly the LSD but it's also partly hell.

 

 

Mac wakes up at noon, and leaves without telling anyone. He goes to confession, but he doesn't tell that either. The priest gives him ten Our Fathers for his sin and he repeats the words to an empty church. Even though he says them in a whisper, the words echo back to him: _lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil_.

When he leaves the church, he doesn't feel cleansed. The Our Fathers churn in the pit of his stomach, and he swallows, knowing they are not the last penance he will do for this sin.

A week goes by and Dennis doesn't come to the dumpster during last period. Two weeks. They avoid each other in the halls between classes. Three weeks. Mac goes back to hanging out with Charlie all the time. Some days, he even goes to algebra.

It's the end of October before Dennis breaks the silence. The bell has rung for seventh period but Mac's still at his locker, not in any hurry to go to algebra, when someone knocks at his locker door. When he turns around, he see Dennis, who says, "I need some weed. You're the only guy still selling in this whole damn school. You’re not going to make me go to the bridge people, are you?"

Mac shakes his head and lets Dennis follow him to the dumpster. They smoke in the field behind the parking lot. Neither one of them mentions the other night. In fact, they don't say much of anything at all.


	2. heaven only lets a few in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I heard that love was a risk worth taking  
> I wouldn't know, never been that boy
> 
> Mama called me destructive  
> Said it'd ruin me one day  
> 'Cause every woman that loved me  
> I seem to push them away
> 
> That's real life, real life  
> Mama talking that real life  
> That real life, real life, real life, real life
> 
> Heaven only lets a few in  
> It's too late for me to choose it  
> Don't waste precious tears on  
> (I'm not worth the misery)  
> I'm better off when I'm alone"  
> \--The Weeknd, Real Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place a few years after the last chapter. Age 22, shit's about to get real.

Senior year. Dennis gets into Penn, the only school he'd bothered applying to. Mac and Charlie don't even bother with applying. Even if they'd had the grades--and they didn't--they wouldn’t have had the money.

Charlie holds a series of odd jobs (changing litter boxes for the humane society, setting rat traps for a pest control business, janitor at a battery factory, etc) while Mac continues to deal--just the soft stuff, weed and LSD and mushrooms. It was safer to stick to those, but it was harder to make money on them. He took some risks, most of which he barely escapes until one day he doesn't.

He'd sold off most of the weight he'd been carrying earlier in the night, thank God. He'd had just a little more than an eighth left on him when the cops busted him--though the cops didn't have to know there was an ounce at home underneath his bed, and another one in the closet.

He'd called Dennis the next morning from the precinct's ancient pay phone. He dials the number from memory, he's called it so many times. While it rings, he prays--that Dennis is home, that he answers the phone, that he can tell Mac how to get out of the mess he’s made this time.

"Mac, what the fuck, it's four o'clock on a Monday morning," Dennis's voice is rough and hungover on the line. "I thought someone died."

"I'm in jail."

Dennis sighs. "What did you do?" The question is matter of fact; he doesn’t seem surprised.

"Look, I got popped with some weed on me. Not that much. A couple grams. But I need someone to post bail for me so I can leave this shithole."

Dennis's anger is palpable, even over the phone. "I have class today, you dipshit."

"Man, I'll pay you back. But I can't tell my mom I'm in here."

"Why not? She'd be disappointed that her only son takes after his father?" It's a low blow. If Dennis were here Mac would hit him for being the arrogant asshole he is.

"Dennis. Please."

Dennis can never resist making someone beg; Mac knows he gets off on having that kind of power over someone else.

"What was that, Mac? I didn't hear you."

 _Motherfucker_. "I said please."

"Now ask me nicely--"

The operator informs him that there are thirty seconds left on the call.

"Please, Dennis? Listen, this is my one phone call. I only get three minutes, and we're almost out of time. Will you please come get me?" He can't help the note of hysteria in his voice--he doesn't want to go to jail. He hates himself for it, hates that he knows Dennis is getting off on it; if he gets off enough he'll come--come and spring Mac from jail, and Mac's ashamed he's desperate enough to beg.

"Mac. Fine. Tell me where you are."

Mac gives him the address and Dennis hangs up with no fanfare. The cop leads him back to the holding cell, and he waits.

 

 

Two hours later, Dennis arrives. Mac is even more thankful Dennis shows up when he does, the holding cell was growing progressively more crowded with ever-more-unsavory individuals.

He'd been thankful when Dennis answered his call, even more so when he drove from Penn all the way down to bail Mac out. “Man, thank you so much. It was really starting to get ugly in there…” He tries to hug his friend, who flinches when he moves in close.

"You smell like shit and you probably have lice from the other degenerates in that cell,” Dennis mutters. “Get in the backseat so I can have some air.”

Resigned, Mac slides into the backseat. "But, really. Thank you bro. I couldn't call my mom."

Dennis is silent as he starts up the car. It’s cold, so he lets the engine run for a bit, rubbing his hands. When he speaks, it is slow and deliberate. "Mac, what are you doing here?" Dennis adjusts the rearview mirror to see Mac's eyes. "I mean, seriously. You're twenty two years old, still running this kid shit."

Mac sulks in the backseat. He's hungover and tired and itchy from his night in the cell; he can't smell himself which is a silent blessing, judging from the way Dennis had made him sit in back.

"You're paying me back the bail money."

"How much?"

"Two thousand."

The bail money had stung--Mac didn't have quite all of it, was $200 short. Dennis let it slide, but took the rest of the cash, even when Mac complained. "Dude, you have to leave me with something."

"Sell the rest of your weed. Or else you could get a real job."

"I've never had a real job," Mac says. "How am I supposed to get a job without experience?"

"There’s other kinds of experience beside work experience. What are your hobbies?"

"Smoking weed. Watching wrestling. Alcohol."

"Anything else?"

Mac shrugs. "No, that pretty much covers all my hobbies."

“Well, you can’t exactly put any of those thing on a resume…” Dennis muses. He snaps his fingers. “Dude, be a bartender. How hard is it to pour beer all night? You might as well get paid to drink, you're going to do it anyway."

It was hard to argue with that logic. Besides, it turned out bartending paid a lot more than drug dealing, and Mac was able to just pay a fine and attend counseling in the end. His mom never finds out about his arrest, and for some reason Mac never tells his dad even though he visits once a month like always. Something deep down inside tells him his dad might not be so proud of him after all.

 

Dennis comes back home that spring, graduating early and with honors despite his apparently burgeoning alcoholism. They all drink too much, Mac knows this, but it's what they do, so he doesn't ask questions. He's good at that--not asking questions.

Mac still goes to church most Sundays, and sometimes even during the week. When he’s on his knees in church, he doesn’t ask why. The priest tells the congregation to kneel, and he kneels. When the priest tells him to repent, he takes his penance and repeats the prayers until his throat aches. God knows he is trying. God knows he suffers.

Dennis still lives in the big house, and Mac visits him constantly. They go out to the bars on South Street, pregaming and getting ready together in Dennis’s private bathroom as they talk shit about all the women they’re going to bang, Dennis teasing him for his taste in women. “Hopefully she’ll be prettier than the last one.”

“Sally? What was wrong with her?”

“She looked like a man, dude! All those muscles and no tits!”

“She did not! She just hits the gym, man. She could squat three hundred!” Mac protests. So what if he prefers a more athletic woman? Boobs were never his thing anyway.

Some nights, Dennis finds a woman to take back home. On those nights, Mac returns to his mother’s house, sometimes with a girl, who he’ll halfheartedly bang if he hasn’t had too much to drink, but most often he comes back alone. He’ll smoke weed and try not to be disappointed. Because on the nights when Dennis strikes out with the women, he makes Mac sleep next to him.

The first time had been that summer. They’d been drinking tequila and Mac had browned out that night; he wasn’t sure how or when they’d gotten home. All he remembers is Dennis putting him to sleep, taking his shoes and his shirt off, then lying down beside him.

A few weeks later, it had happened again, except he’d been more conscious. He’d taken off his shoes and laid down on the couch intending to pass the fuck out, but Dennis had nudged him awake and told him to come upstairs. Mac knows Dennis doesn't like to sleep alone so he obliges. Not as if he had slept that night, and Dennis had tossed and turned so much, Mac is pretty sure he hadn’t slept either.

It's another one of those nights--Dennis had left with a pretty brunette's phone number, but without the pretty brunette herself. Mac had been flirting halfheartedly with a cute girl who had her hair in pigtails, waiting for his friend to seal the deal with the girl so he could leave. The girl stormed off eventually, apparently angry at Mac for something but it was her problem if she couldn't appreciate Predator's mass. He's drinking beer alone by the jukebox, already drunk and on the verge of getting sloppy when Dennis finds him.

It's November and the weather has taken a turn for the worse--it's cold, but just warm enough to rain, which soaks into their clothes and feels colder than snow. Mac teases Dennis for striking out with his woman.

"Whatever, man. I'm still in the Demonstrating Value stage of the System. You can't rush these things. But what do you know about the system?"

"I saw enough to see you demonstrate value all over her." It's sophomoric and unfunny and Mac laughs hysterically anyway. Dennis grudgingly smiles, and they walk in the rain, Mac on the outside of Dennis to protect him from the cars. They walk home from the bar--they're far too drunk to drive properly, nearly too drunk to walk properly.

Luckily Dennis's house is not far from the bar, and they make it back without incident, except for Mac mistaking a bum for a trashcan and urinating on him. They were lucky the guy was drunker than they were, and not high on anything that would have made him too aggressive to outrun, even in their intoxicated state.

Mac’s heart skips a beat as he follows Dennis upstairs. The sin burns in his belly. At the door to his room, Dennis stops short and Mac walks into him

"Dude, who said you could come in my room?"

Mac burns red, and stutters--"Well, you didn't leave with the brunette chick, and I thought maybe..."

They're drunk. "What did you think, Mac?"

"I thought I might... " The words fail him. "No--wait, just--forget it."

Dennis laughs. It's not a funny laugh, it's sinister. "No, I haven't forgotten it." He looks Mac in the eyes, with that weird unblinking blue stare he gets sometimes, and Mac knows exactly what it is he means when he says that--Dennis hasn't forgotten. Mac flashes back to the night they took LSD all those years ago and the few furtive kisses the two of them shared in the darkness while Mac watched the flames of hell licking at the furniture. There were so many things to repent.

"All you have to do is ask," Dennis says.

Mac chokes. He wants to say the words, he doesn't want to say the words. It all gets tripped up inside him and comes out as a moan. Mac tries to kiss Dennis, but he catches Mac's face in his hands, and they look at each other from inches apart. "No. Not unless you tell me."

The words all come out in a gasp. "Sleep with you."

"What was that?" Dennis waits. "I couldn't understand you."

"I thought I might--sleep in your room." Mac feels dizzy, like he doesn't have enough air.

Dennis's fingers relax (is this a caress? Mac’s breath catches in his throat, he can't tell but he dares to want). "Oh, OK. By all means."

Mac's clothes are wet all the way through, and he doesn't have anything to wear. He removes his shirt and jeans before he climbs into the bed. Usually he passes out fully clothed, so when Mac takes off his shirt he's aware of Dennis's eyes on his back while he’s undressing. He is thankful for the dim lamp light so Dennis can't see his skin flush under his gaze.

"Dude, do you have some pajamas I can borrow?"

"I am faaaaaar to drunk to find anything. You'll be fine. The blanket's really warm." Dennis pulls the blanket back to show Mac, who jumps between the sheets anxiously to avoid Dennis noticing the effect his gaze had had on him, immediately settling on his side, facing the wall like he always does, waiting for Dennis to do the same. Except when Dennis crawls into the bed beside him, he turns toward Mac's body, almost close enough to spoon. Mac's heart skips a beat as they lie down, even though he knows it's probably just because Dennis doesn't like to sleep alone and it's not like it means anything, especially not anything _gay,_ even if he can feel his friend's fuzzy chest against his back and hairy legs prickle against his own. When Dennis kisses the back of his neck, he feels that too, even though it's as soft as breath.

All it takes is that small contact, and Mac is undone, he's tired of always having Dennis nearby but always out of reach. He kisses him, feels Dennis flinch, but Mac rests his mouth on his, breathing in Dennis's breath. The familiar taste of tequila and cigarettes and an act of contrition only drives Mac on, and soon Dennis relaxes, licks his lips, then licks Mac's, moving his body closer to Mac's in a rare act of surrender. His hips crash into Mac's, his hot dick resting on Mac's balls. Mac can feel the heat of his dick and his desire as he grinds their cocks together between kisses.

It takes just minutes of this slow torture to make him spill in his boxers, and Dennis isn't far behind. With a few more thrusts against Mac's still-throbbing dick, Dennis lets go with a groan.

It's the first time Mac has touched another man's cock, and Dennis's orgasm is the sweetest thing he has ever felt.

Afterwards, Dennis lies on top of him, his body dead weight in the aftermath of his orgasm. His prominent hipbones dig into Mac's side and it's uncomfortable but he's afraid to move, wants to lie as still as possible so the moment will last forever.

But eventually they disentangle themselves, tucking into their appointed sides of the bed, just closer. Dennis hogs the pillows but Mac steals the blanket so they're even.

 

 

He lies there until morning, repeating an act of contrition inside his head all night long as he watches Dennis sleep. _Bless me Father, for I have sinned._ It is a long time until the sun rises, and Mac dresses in the early morning light and goes to early Mass.

It's just him and some devout old Irish women in here, and the cathedral bells ring out above them, filling the entire room with their sound. Mac doesn't hear a word of the sermon. Every time he tries to concentrate he remembers snippets of the night before--Dennis's stubble tickling his neck, the texture of his slightly chapped lips, the hot hot heat that radiated from the core of him as he thrust against Mac's ass and balls and dick--but it feels like an act of blasphemy to think those kinds of things during Mass.

No, Mass is where you go to have God take those kinds of thoughts away from you, to have him push out the sins and make you pure.

Except when he leaves, he doesn't feel cleansed. He's hungover and sweaty and  needs a shower and his mind is full of the kinds of things he'll need something stronger than Communion wine to make himself forget.

 

 

Mac visits Dennis less often at the big house after that. The Father's words admonish him every time he is alone with Dennis, and he's determined not to succumb to temptation. He spends more time with Charlie, huffing spraypaint and drinking 40’s in the alley. When Dennis calls him to hang out, Mac brings Charlie along more often than not, and the three of them become an unofficial group of sorts.

The nights Dennis leaves the bars without a companion for the night, Mac leaves without him, lets him go home alone. It’s safer this way--the devil stalks in darkness and you never see him coming until he’s got you in his arms. At least this way, Mac figures, he has a chance to catch the devil coming, he can escape before it’s too late.


	3. the Devil wants me as is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Trapped, no shield, no sword  
> The unbeaten path got my soul so sore  
> Allured by lust, something money can’t cure  
> The Devil want me as is, but God he want more”  
> \--The Roots, Walk Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mac and Dennis move into their apartment. Paddy's makes its first appearance. Setting things up for the first season. Also, gay stuff.

Next year, Dee returns home. Dennis can’t stand having his sister around--she looks like a bird and is always doing terrible impersonations of actually decent actors, it’s true, but she also can hold her alcohol and is quick with the comebacks, so eventually she becomes a part of their crew as they mix drinks and slam beers at the bar in the Reynolds’s basement.

Still, Dennis talks about getting a place of his own constantly, and it's hard not to get swept up in his enthusiasm. Beside, Mac is twenty-five and still living at home. Even Charlie has a place of his own by now, a shithole of an apartment with a hotplate and a raging bedbug infestation, but still. He'd moved on. "We should be roommates, bro!" Dennis exclaims, lost in another fantasy about getting his own apartment.

Mac flushes. He doesn't know if he can handle that. Embarrassment flares up in him and he can't look Dennis in the eyes when he says he'll think about it but right now he needs a beer to get his thoughts straight. When Dennis passes him the bottle, their fingers overlap for just a moment and something electric passes between them that they both pretend not to feel.

 

 

"Dennis asked me to move in with him," Mac tells Charlie. Charlie's been huffing glue and his eyes are bleary but his voice is crystal clear when he says, "Don't do that, Mac. Don't move in with the guy just because you have a crush on him."

"Charlie, what the fuck are you talking about?" Mac can taste the bile in the back of his throat, pissed that Charlie would ever accuse him of having a crush on a man. He knocks the gluebag out of Charlie's hand. "You've been sniffing too much glue, you dick."

"Give that back, you idiot!" Charlie waits but Mac stands his ground, he doesn't speak, he doesn't even move. Charlie shakes his head. "Fine. Fine. Do whatever you want." He snatches the gluebag back from Mac, but it's been all stuck together, crumpled in his hands. "Forget I said anything."

Charlie fiddles with the bag, but he can't get it unstuck. "Damnit, Mac, that was the last of the glue. Now I'm going to have to huff paint."

Except he can't forget it. He thinks about it before he drifts to sleep--the warm feeling that gathered in his belly when Dennis asked him to move in. Charlie's advice echoes in his skull: _you don't have to move in with the guy just because you have a crush on him._ His brain says, _I don't._ His heart skips a beat. His tongue trips over his prayers.

 

 

In December, Dennis signs a lease, and Mac takes the second bedroom. When he shows up at the apartment, he doesn't bring much with him, just a few boxes.

He hangs a crucifix in the living room, which Dennis mocks but Mac stands his ground. "Every house needs a crucifix, dude. You gotta keep the bad spirits out." _And all your sins in._ But of course he doesn't say that, and Dennis reluctantly lets him nail the crucifix to to the wall after all.

That night, Mac nails another crucifix above the headboard of his bed. He doesn't want the demons coming after him as he sleeps, after all. He kneels beside the bed, and says a quick prayer before he sleeps: _And if I should die before I wake,_ _I pray the Lord my soul to take._

 

 

In January, Dennis receives yet another rejection from veterinary school  and decides to open a bar instead. “I’d be putting my minor to good use… It’s the closest thing to therapy, really. People come in, they talk to the bartender, tell him all their problems. They could leave the bar with some of my expert advice and a whole new perspective on life.”

Mac snorts into his beer. “Yeah, your kind of advice would probably lead them to suicide. Or alcoholism.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dennis glared into his bottle.

“Well, look at Dee. She’s a mess, and you’ve been manipulating her for years…. Therapy’s a crock of shit, anyway. What we need is a confessional.” He takes a swig of his beer. “You drink your check away, your wife needed the money for diapers, and then you can go be absolved of your alcoholism.”

“Well, we could have a glory hole… Maybe that would work?”

Mac punches Dennis in his arm, wishing he could aim right for that smug smile, and changes the subject. “It could be an Irish bar. Everyone knows the Irish know how to drink.”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea…What better business plan is there than serving irresponsible amounts of alcohol to people genetically predisposed to alcoholism?” Dennis grins and raises his glass in a gesture of toast. Mac clinks their beer cans together, and they chug and stomp the cans in celebration, passing the rest of the night drinking shitty beer and fantasizing about their bar.

Mac doesn’t expect anything to come out of their conversation--as far as he’s concerned, owning a bar is just another one of innumerable impossible schemes concocted after one or two or ten too many drinks. But two months later, Dennis comes home with a deed and a set of keys, vibrating with excitement.

“Mac, baby, we did it! We’re gonna own the best Irish bar in Philadelphia history!” Dennis grabs him into a hug right there in the living room and Mac is nearly bowled over by the momentum of his excitement.

“No fucking way, dude!” Mac exclaims.

Dennis hands him the deed: and there it is, in plain writing. “Come on, come on, let’s go check it out,” he wheedles, and Mac doesn’t need any more convincing.

The bar is on one of the worst streets in South Philly, surrounded by derelict warehouses and factories. The building itself looks ramshackle from the outside; when Dennis opens the door, it’s obvious the interior has fared no better.  A dense cloud of dust wafts up with every step they take; even in the darkness Mac can see a thick layer of grime coating every surface. Everything about the building seems half-abandoned. But Dennis is obviously proud, and he gives Mac the grand tour as though he is a giving a tour of the Kingdom itself.

“And this is the bar,” he says, guiding Mac by his elbow to the dusty wooden bar. Even beneath the filth, he can tell it’s beautiful, it’s everything Mac could have dreamed.

“Well, fuck, Dennis, you did it.”

Dennis smiles, and for once, there’s nothing sinister behind it. He reaches behind the bar and opens a bottle of champagne with a satisfying _pop_. All the glasses are filthy, so he drinks directly from the bottle, offering it to Mac once he’s had his fill. “To our future,” he breathes as Mac swallows the sweet, bubbly liquor.

The two of them stand in the darkness, passing the bottle between them. Here in the bar, it’s easy to believe that their future is limitless. In the half-abandoned gloom that surrounds them, it seems infinite.

Mac is giddy with possibility. “How--” (his voice is hoarse from the dust in the air; he wets his throat with more champagne before continuing), “how did you do this, Dennis?”

Dennis reaches for the bottle. “Who cares, babe? It’s ours, all ours!”

Mac swallows. “Ours?” The dust is in his throat again, the word escapes like a gasp.

“Yours. Mine. Charlie’s.” Mac doesn’t know what to say, so Dennis fills the silence. “I’m going to need a couple of partners to get this business off the ground. Figure we’ll need a bouncer to keep all the drunkards in order--that’s something you can do, right?”

“Hell yeah! I’m gonna be the best bouncer in all of Philadelphia!” Mac dances around the room in a parody of karate stances, kicking haphazard clouds of dust into the air.

Dennis coughs. “I knew you’d love it,” he mutters. He watches Mac like he’s a specimen from under heavy-lidded eyes, proffering the bottle of champagne like a peace offering.

The two of them drink in the dusty darkness until there’s nothing left. When they hop into the car, Dennis reaches for Mac’s hand over the center console. Mac doesn’t protest, lets him hold on the whole way home. It’s the least that he can do.

 

 

They’re back home, in the apartment, before he speaks... “Hey dude,” he says softly.

Dennis grunts in acknowledgement.

“Thank you for the bar. That’s like--” Mac swallows--”that’s the nicest gift anyone has ever gotten me.”

Dennis steps closer in their living room, each footfall echoing around them. Before Mac knows what’s happening, Dennis’s body presses up against him in the darkness. Mac opens his mouth to say something in protest, but Dennis silences him with a thumb against his open mouth. He can’t help himself so he bites Dennis’s thumb, which tastes salty and rough.

Dennis looks straight into his eyes, and Mac flicks his tongue against the thumb on his lips. He keeps his eyes open this time, and the expression on Dennis’s face changes as he watches Mac suck on his thumb--his pupils dilate and his mouth opens. The room is dark but Dennis’s eyes are bright and before Mac notices, Dennis replaces his thumb with his mouth. It’s not Mac’s fault if he has to open his mouth to breathe at the precise moment that Dennis’s tongue darts from between his lips. Not his fault if he falls, open-mouthed, onto Dennis’s face.

Mac pays attention to the curve of Dennis’s spine, the shape of his collarbone. He’s in no hurry--they’re alone here--it’s the first chance he has to take his time. It might be the only chance he gets and he never wants to remember and he never wants to forget. Not his fault if he swallows each of Dennis’s exhalations, letting the moans unfold in his belly. You can’t blame him. (Mac blames himself, but he doesn’t care).

Mac’s sober, or close to it as he ever gets these days--just a half bottle of champagne. He’s not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, not being able to deny his desire behind the veil of drink or drugs. Kissing women had never felt like this, but he gets it now, this is _kissing,_ that’s for sure--his whole skin prickles with anticipation. Every kiss he’s had up until this one has been a lie, he knows this now.

Each caress Dennis makes on Mac’s skin is vivid, and he looks down--Dennis’s slim fingers on his chest, his lips slightly ajar, a word on his breath in the shape of _please._ And Mac is hungry, hungrier than he’s ever been, so he swallows that word too, swallows Dennis’s tongue and all the other words he might say with it.

Dennis kisses a wet trail along Mac’s jawline. Finding a particularly sensitive spot behind his ear, he bites down. It hurts but it feels good and absentmindedly Mac realizes he will probably have marks in the morning but he doesn’t make Dennis stop his agonizing sucking. “Yes, baby boy,” Dennis murmurs between bites, “stay with me”--he pulls Mac into him, pulls Mac against his body from head to toe. Mac watches his fingers unbutton Dennis’s shirt without his bidding.

When their dicks touch, Mac flinches. His cock throbs in his pants, and _he’s not ready,_ _he can’t do this,_ he can’t pretend he’s not with another man if there’s another dick right there, next to his, leaking precum onto his own cockhead. He breaks the kiss with a loud pop of suction.

Dennis puts his hands on Mac’s face, but when he kisses him, Mac cannot kiss back. His tongue lies slack in his mouth and when his hands drop to his sides they are knotted up into fists, so tight the knuckles are white. He use those fists to push Dennis’s bare chest away from him.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” he says, turning red, aware of the hot heavy heat in his jeans, knowing his voice is coming out in a strangled whisper. Mac is choking on his want and the Jesus on the crucifix above them stares down knowingly. His plastic eyes do not blink.

But Dennis doesn’t feel shame. He lies on the couch, chest bare and lips swollen, and he looks Mac directly in the eye and smirks--a disheveled devil. The alpha and the omega of Mac’s temptation.

If Dennis won’t be ashamed, Mac will carry the shame for the two of them. He storms out of the living room and into the bathroom, locking the door behind him and running the water, letting the shower heat up. In the steaming mirror, Mac stares at his own disheveled reflection--lips cracked and peeling from their mingled saliva, and two hickies just behind his ear, half-covered by frizzy hair coaxed into cowlicks by Dennis’s long fingers. He looks like a drowning sailor or a man undone.

Mac brushes his teeth in the shower. He’s desperate to get the taste of Dennis out of his mouth, desperate to get the smell of him off of his skin. Desperate to take it all back.

But every attempt to erase the incident from his mind makes his skin burn and his dick jump and the desire he’d tried to ignore flare up in his stomach. When he jerks off, he won’t think about Dennis’s tongue or his body and definitely not his dick, hard and hot against Mac’s own--and when Mac comes, he cries out for God, but no one answers. All he hears is the water coming down around him and his own ragged breath as his semen floats down the drain.

 

 

Mac wonders if there's a limit to forgiveness. He’s on his knees in the confessional, his voice low as he names his sins: _I have taken the Lord’s name in vain. I killed six rats in the alley with Charlie. Last night I kissed a man, and so help me God, I would do it again if he let me._

The sin is always the same, only the penance changes. As he says his prayers-- _Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and the snares of the Devil--_ the two red hickies behind his ear (each in the same cruel shape as Dennis’s mouth) burn with Mac’s shame. _May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts--_ he touches the bruises with his fingers and the flesh is hot and rough-- _by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen._

Mac stays out of the apartment for the rest of the day. When he returns, Dennis’s door is closed and Mac can hear a woman’s voice murmur through the walls and he’s not prepared for the emotion that rips through him like a serrated knife, tearing at his flesh. Things are just the same as they always are and Mac doesn’t know why he feels like his intestines are being slowly severed from his stomach when nothing has changed.

In desperation, Mac prays. He looks into the eyes of Jesus, forever suspended on his cross, and repeats his prayers to the Archangel: _By the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls._ The imprint of Dennis’s teeth has not yet begun to fade from Mac’s neck, and he is fucking some random woman while Mac tries to convince himself that he isn’t wishing he was the one who could make Dennis groan like that; he is angry and he has no right to be. He’s never cared before (or has he? some part of him is unsure of this) and he won’t start caring now. _Lord, hear our prayer._

 

 

The next morning , Mac runs into Dennis in the kitchen; he’s drinking out of the orange juice carton, shirtless with all the marks of his conquest the night before scattered across his chest. He’s showing off and Mac knows and his stomach growls so he reaches for the orange juice and chugs the last of it without a word, substituting one thirst for another. It doesn’t work as well as he’d expected it to.

“Your hair,” Dennis says. “I like it like this.” He reaches up and with a slightly unsteady hand he tucks Mac’s sideburns behind his ears, his fingertips lingering on the two small red bruises blooming on Mac’s neck.

Mac shrugs and mutters _thanks_ and tries not to feel the shudder of something electric that sparks across his skin in the exact spot that Dennis touched. Unbidden, a fragment of a prayer surfaces in his mind-- _And all the evil spirits who prowl about this earth seeking the ruin of souls._ Mac thinks he knows something about those kinds of spirits, the ruiners of souls. There is one standing across from him right now resting his fingers on Mac’s neck in broad daylight, waiting either to kiss him or kill him; it’s the kind of caress that could do both. But when Mac shrugs, Dennis lets him go.

When the hickies heal, Mac starts to slick his hair back again. The rest of the world falls back into place--Charlie fixes the derelict plumbing and bashes rats in the basement as he and Dennis clean the dust from the tables and chairs. At night, the three of them drink together, drink to their friendship, drink to their new partnership. The days blur together until the evening they stock the bar, then turn on the neon OPEN sign in the window.

Even if their only clients that night are seasoned alcoholics drifting in from the nearby wharves and factories, it feels like a victory.

 

 

A few weeks later, they finally celebrate. It's the first night the bar could have been said to make a profit. They'd pulled in nearly four hundred dollars, which isn't much but it's a start.

Dennis drags Mac to alley as Dee and Charlie close the bar. He flashes the joint he holds between his knuckles. “Wanna smoke?”

Mac’s not one to turn down free weed, so Dennis lights the joint for him, lets him have the first drags. It's been a long time since he’s has smoked weed, a few weeks at least, and the smoke hits him hard.

"Christ, man," he wheezes between coughs. "You could have warned me this shit was strong."

Dennis shakes his head. "It's better this way." He is smirking, so infuriatingly sure of himself.

The snow intensifies. All around them, the wind howls. When their bodies move so close together they touch, Mac holds the joint up to Dennis's face. Is he imagining things or is Dennis pressing his lips against Mac's fingers as he sucks on the joint? _It's just your imagination_ , he tells himself, but his heart races and his mouth waters as he watches his best friend suck on the joint, Dennis's lips lingering ever so lightly against Mac's fingertips.

This time, he can't lie to himself about who kissed who--it's all his fault. But it's so easy to take the joint from Dennis and replace it with his lips, letting him exhale the sweet smoke into his mouth as he swallows his tongue. It's snowing and Dennis's breath is warm and Mac wants nothing more than this heat, even though he can feel the flames of hell at his back but he'll trade being damned for this.

Dennis pulls away for a moment, opening his mouth as if to ask a question, and Mac takes his breath, eats up the words. He doesn't want to hear it, doesn't want anything to break the silence as the snow falls gently around them. The joint burns out in his hand, and Dennis begins to kiss Mac back, begins to bring their hips together so he can feel the heat build between them, and it's good, better than it's been with any woman. He likes the warm hardness of Dennis's dick against his own. It's better than he remembered during their few furtive kisses in the dark so many months ago now as they rut senselessly through their winter clothes.

A door slams. Mac and Dennis spring apart, self-consciously adjusting their clothing as a voice approaches them.

"Oh shit boners, you have weed?" Dee squawks. She is outside in the alley, and from the sounds of things, Charlie is here too. "Hand that shit over!"

Mac wipes his mouth guiltily as he passes Dee the burnt out joint. The saliva on his lips will dry out in the cold, and in the morning the skin will crack and bleed as he repeats his penance. Twenty Our Fathers. The first two mysteries of the rosary. Each sin a little more expensive than the last. But for now, he will smoke another joint with his friends in the alley, and laugh as Charlie burns off his eyebrows with his torch lighter.

"Jesus, Charlie, what are you doing with this thing? Smoking crack?"

"No, Dee, I already told you. It's for the rats! You have to burn them out of their nests!"

“Goddamn it Charlie, no burning rats! You are going to burn this bar down to the ground!” Dennis shouts but there’s no malice in it. The four of them stand in the alley, laughing and letting the smoke and snow swirl around them. When Dennis passes the joint to Mac, he holds the soggy paper to his lips, trying and failing not to taste Dennis’s breath as he pulls the sweet smoke into his lungs.

Mac watches his friends there in the alley, a man apart. He wonders if Dennis feels like he does--all synapses firing, his skin burning from their touch. But there is nothing to give it away--he’s the same as always, all bravado and rage. As the joint burns out, so does his desire. He tosses the roach into the accumulating snow and recites a prayer: _Thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen._ Under the streetlights, Mac swallows, asks Jesus to save him from the devil whose curling hair and white toothed grin who is his own personal temptation. But if he’s honest (he won't be), his faith cannot save him from the sins lingering on his tongue and the saliva swirling in his mouth.


	4. but God I like it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hey hey my baby  
> Won't you lay hands on me?  
> Mirror my malady  
> Transfer my tragedy
> 
> Got a curse I cannot lift  
> Shines when the sunset shifts  
> When the moon is round and full  
> Gotta bust that box  
> Gotta gut that fox
> 
> My mind has changed  
> My body's changed  
> But god I like it  
> My heart's aflame  
> My body's strange  
> But, God, I like it"
> 
> \--TV on the Radio, Wolf Like Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first season. A lot of the dialogue between the gang is lifted from the first episode (the gang gets racist)--not typical future chapters, but it felt appropriate here considering that

Paddy’s isn't exactly the goldmine that they’d anticipated. Paddy’s Pub attracts a certain clientele--career alcoholics who care less about the ambiance and more about the cheap drinks. Still, the four of them make enough to maintain their shitty apartments, their shitty lives. Until the night they accidentally become a gay bar.

It’s Dee’s fault of course; her black friend Tyrell promises to promote their bar. They’re so swamped keeping up with the crowd no one notices that there are no women in the bar. It’s not until Mac recognizes his cousin Brad hanging by the jukebox that he realizes what’s really happening.

“Hey Brad, can you believe this crowd?” Mac chirps over the crowd. “It’s something else.”

Brad pauses browsing the music and looks him in the eyes. “I’m really proud of you, man. You’ve come a long way.”

“What do you mean?” Mac furrows his brow in confusion.

“Well, you guys are running the hottest gay bar in Philadelphia!”

Mac freezes; stunned into silence. _Gay bar?_ No way. Not Paddy’s, not the Irish Catholic bar Mac’s poured his blood and sweat into.But as he looks around him, he realizes that the bar is filled with _men_. Not a single woman, except for Dee, who’s more a bird anyway. The whole bar is full of sodomites and sinners. Mac feels his mouth go dry. All the penance he’s done, and God is testing him, He must be. Why else would he fill the bar full of temptation?

He doesn’t bother to continue his conversation with Brad, choosing instead to ignore the legions of sinners surrounding him as he goes through the motions of his position as Head of Security. So what if he kicks out more people than he ever has before? These sodomites had no business in his bar!

 

 

The next morning the gang meets for brunch. Mac opens the paper to the classifieds. “No goddamn way. Have you guys seen this?” He reads from the paper: “‘Looking for that new hotspot to spot that stud? Well, Paddy’s Irish Pub has plugged that hole!’”

Charlie takes a swig of his mimosa. “That’s a nice notice.”

Dennis agrees. “That’s not bad.”

Mac slams his fists onto the table. “No. that’s not a good notice. I don’t want to be plugging anybody’s holes!”

“I’m gonna have to agree with Mac on this one,” Dee chimes in.

“Well of course you are,” Dennis fires back. “I made three hundred dollars last night. How much did you make?”

“Well, OK, first of all, that’s rude, and that has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.” Dee glares at her brother from across the table.

“No that’s exactly what you’re talking about!”

“Listen guys,” Charlie says, “I don’t think we have much of a choice here. We need to do this.”

Mac’s so angry he could spit. “If you guys remember, one of the reasons we got this bar in the first place is to get laid.”

Charlie shrugs. “Maybe you did it to get laid, but I have a little something I call ‘business ethics’.”

Mac blows his bangs out of his face in exasperation. “Business ethics? Charlie, the only reason you don’t care is that you  have black girls hanging all over you.” Charlie glares at him as he sips his cocktail  “You’re going to fuck this up!”

Dennis jumps in. “Look you guys, this a purely fiscal decision.”

Dee snorts. “Bullshit. You don’t care about the money. You just like the attention.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” Dennis glares at Dee with murder in his eyes.

“You’re leading them on. You’re not gay. You’re just really, really vain.”

“Goddamn you, Dee, you’re just jealous because you didn’t get any tips last night!”

The two of them hover over their chairs, about to break into physical violence.

Charlie attempts to defuse the situation. “Time out, time out, let’s have a vote. All those in favor of Paddy’s remaining a gay bar, say ‘aye’.”

Dennis and Charlie raise their hand, saying _aye._

“Ok, now, all those opposed--”

“Keeping in mind that _you,”_ Dennis looks right at Dee, “don’t get a vote.”

“The fuck do you mean, my vote doesn’t count?”

“You’re just the bartender!”

The four of them erupt into an argument. Just as the waitress shoots them a nasty look, Charlie shouts, “All _owners_ who are opposed, say ‘nay’.”

Mac raises his hand in defeat. “Nay.”

“Two against one! Two against one!” Charlie gloats. “Henceforth, Paddy’s Pub will remain the hottest gay bar in Philadelphia.” He and Dennis toast as Mac and Dee fume.

It’s decided. The bar will remain open to sodomites and sinners. And Mac has to watch Dennis prance behind the bar in a black wifebeater as the crowd sodomites flirt with him and cheer him on. He’s not jealous; he can’t be. It’s not like Dennis belongs to him--it’s not like he wants a sodomite anyway.

 

 

“What the hell is going on here,” he mutters into his beer, watching Dennis perform for the crowd. He’s been staring all night so Dennis can tell he disapproves, but it doesn’t seem like he notices at all as he prances and flirts for his adoring minions.

Dee yanks Mac into the office. “I think I know how we can solve this whole gay… mess.”

“How?” Mac doesn’t mean to sound so eager.

“Well, first we have to start with Dennis. Can you get him _so_ drunk tonight, on tequila, like _a lot_ of it? Like enough of it that maybe he might hurt himself.”

Mac realizes he’s underestimated Dee all these years. “Sure, no problem.”

“Alright.” Dee grabs her jacket and heads for the door.

“Wait. Where are you going?’

Dee reaches for the doorknob. “I gotta talk to a few friends from my acting class. But seriously, _blackout_ drunk,” she admonishes as she opens the door.

 

 

It's late. They’ve closed the bar and counted the cash when Mac opens the bottle of tequila with the excuse that they’ve made more money tonight than any other night in the history of the bar, they’ve earned it. That’s all the convincing Dennis (already halfway to drunk from all the shots he’d been bought by their new clientele) needs to drink chop a handful of limes and break out the salt.

“To the bar,” Mac says.

“To _money,_ ” Dennis corrects, and they clink their glasses. Dennis licks the salt off his hand, then slams back the shot, sucking on his lime in an efficient motion while Mac takes his time. Dennis is already refilling his own glass and takes another shot while Mac finishes his first. He takes the first few shots in the proper order, then after his third (Dennis has probably had five of his own by that point), he acts confused, eating the lime first.

Dennis notices. “Dude, what are you doing?”

“So you do the lime first, then the shot, right?” Mac scrunches his forehead in a parody of thought.

“No. No no no no no.” Dennis runs his fingers through his hair and scrunches his eyes shut. “You take the salt,” he demonstrates, licking his hand, his tongue a flicker of pink against his flesh, “then you take the shot,” (his Adam’s apple bobs in his taut throat as he swallows), “and then, you suck on the lime.” He tosses the discarded rind on the bar, which is already littered with them.

Mac smirks, then pulls his face straight, not wanting to give away the joke. “OK. Why don’t you show me again, Because I’m getting a little confused…”

Dennis narrows his eyes but he obliges. “Lick it. Then you slam it,” he burps as the liquor goes down, swallowing the lime without comment.

“That’s great,” Mac says. Dennis is drunk for sure, can barely keep his eyes open. “So, I’m gonna do the shot first…”

“No, no,” Dennis moans. “Oh please, dude. Please.” He pours another shot, muttering, “you don’t _listen_ to me,” into the bar.

“I’m just not getting it, bro,” Mac shrugs. Dennis slumps down into the bar, and grudgingly takes the shot; Mac notices he swallows twice to keep the liquor down. It’s late, it has to be after three in the morning, and Dee’s acting friends hadn’t yet shown up. He didn’t know how much longer he can keep Dennis drunk without giving him alcohol poisoning.

“How are you not getting this?” Dennis shouts. “Goddamn it, you can’t be this stupid.”

Mac shrugs at his exasperation, suppressing a grin. “I don’t know, dude, it’s just so many steps.”

“Jesus, Mac, it’s not that complicated. Look,” Dennis grab’s Mac’s hand off the bar as he says it, making eye contact with Mac as he brings the wrist to his lips, and licks. Before Mac can react, he sprinkles the salt onto the small wet spot of his saliva, then commands, “Lick.” Mac hesitates, and Dennis pushes the salty skin against his lips and then Mac does just that.

“Drink,” Dennis commands, holding a shot glass to Mac’s lips. It’s filled to the brim and Dennis’s hands tremble against Mac’s chin, and some of the tequila dribbles onto his long, aristocratic fingers. Mac’s heart is pounding and he tilts his head back and swallows, then in the next moment those fingers are pushing a lime into his mouth. “Then the lime,” Dennis scolds, and Mac bites down into the sour flesh, transfixed on those long white fingers just millimeters away.

He can’t help himself, a thirst rages through him that no amount of drink can cure. Mac sucks one long finger into his mouth, tastes the bitter liquor and the sour lime explode against his tongue, then he feels the pressure of another fingertip against his mouth and he swallows that one too. He swirls his tongue around Dennis’s long fingers and nearly chokes when they brush up against his tonsils.

Dennis is looking straight at him. He’s a mess—his eyes are red and bleary and his curls are plastered against his forehead with sweat. His mouth is open and Mac doesn’t know if it’s from horror or desire but he decides to find out, and leans forward, lowering his mouth onto Dennis’s gently gasping lips. Dennis is motionless as Mac presses their mouths together, and for a terrible moment Mac thinks he has made a terrible mistake.

But then Dennis moans—a low and keening sound—and he kisses back with such ferocity Mac feels teeth. It’s been a year since they’ve done this, not that Mac is keeping count. They settle into the kiss slowly over the bar, until Mac is out of his seat, on his tiptoes, with his chest pressed against Dennis’s skinny shoulders. The only lights in the bar are the neon liquor signs and they stain everything purple like a dream.

Somehow they stumble to a booth without breaking contact. Mac can tell Dennis is drunk as fuck, his body is dead weight and he practically has to carry the man. His mouth is sloppy against Mac’s and tastes sour; there’s no finesse, no seduction, just clumsy, artless slurping.

Dennis lies back in the booth and tries to sit up, but fails. He reaches for the button on his jeans, cursing as he struggles, then giving up. He mutters something but slurs so much Mac can’t make any sense of what he’s saying, not that he could hear anything over the lust ringing in his ears, so Mac slides into the booth, pulling Dennis onto his lap who promptly slumps against his body and suddenly Mac understands why gravity is the strongest force in the universe.

He feels a thrill, knowing he could do anything to Dennis in this state. But as he reaches forward to open Dennis’s fly, a wave of guilt breaks over his chest. Dennis is nearly still above him, his eyes barely open, he’s boneless like a rag doll. Something’s wrong. Mac realizes that he doesn’t want Dennis like this, faded and inert.

“I can’t,” he says. “Not like this.” Mac pushes Dennis off his lap, but his friend is drunk, too drunk—he slumps bonelessly across the booth, unable to lift himself back up. Mac offers a hand, but Dennis is too proud to take it.

“You can’t what, Mac? What is it you can’t do?” He may be too drunk to stand and slurring his words but they still punch him in the gut. Mac just stands there all crumpled into himself like a used condom.

“You’ve started something you can’t finish.” He stumbles to his feet after a few agonizingly uncoordinated attempts. “I’m going to find someone who can do it for you.” As Dennis speaks his features twist. “How do you like that, Mac?”

Mac knows that he’s not a good person, and although church helps he still does shitty things to people all the time, but he can’t fuck Dennis like this, way past browned out, completely blacked out. _It’s not that I don’t want to remember. I just don’t want you to forget._ That’s one line he won’t cross, even though he suspects that one day Dennis might not be so generous with him.

“Dennis, listen…” Dennis stops, grabbing onto the booth to steady himself. Mac’s surprised by the fury in his eyes, he’d seen Dennis angry but not like this, never at him.

“Why should I listen to you? You can’t even listen to yourself!” Dennis spits, making his ungainly way to the door. Mac doesn’t even want to chase him—the way Dennis looked at him had been utterly unhinged. He had often sensed the darkness in his friend but even his worst fears hadn’t come close to the expression on his face. It had said that Mac would be a dead man if he even tried to stop him. So Mac lets him leave, doesn’t try to say anything even though Dennis is drunk enough to hurt himself.

He stays by himself in the bar, cleaning and taking angry swigs of tequila, not bothering with a chaser. It’s shitty tequila that burns on the way down and has an aftertaste like vomiting a burrito. It tastes just like Dennis.

He gets way more drunk than any man has a right to be on a Tuesday night, seeing double by the time he locks the door behind him. The click of the deadbolt echoes between the shadows of the industrial buildings looming over the sidewalk. Mac’s sighs come back to him. It’s empty and still in the alley even though something crackles under Mac’s skin, willing something to happen. Anything. But he doesn’t see another person as he walks the long mile home.

 

 

Mac stumbles home and passes out fully clothed. In the morning between desperate sips of Gatorade and coffee he notices that Dennis never made it home last night but he won’t let himself care.

It’s early when he heads to work the next morning... He can’t stand the quiet in the apartment, the riot in his heart. So he heads to the only other place he can think of--the bar. Charlie’s there, playing a game of darts during the morning lull. A handful of career alcoholics nurse their morning beers as he and Charlie toss darts to pass the time.

“I’ve been thinking…” Mac begins.

“Yeah?” Charlie asks.

“Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if Paddy’s is a gay bar.”

Charlie aims his dart as he speaks. “I’m really glad you decided to embrace this. You’re doing the right thing here, bro.” He lets the dart fly--a perfect bullseye.

“I really think so too, dude.” Mac lets his own dart fly. It’s a bad toss; it sinks into one of the outer circles of the board. “I feel really good about broadening my horizons, you know?”

Charlie nods. “It’ll be fun. And it’s a good business decision--” As he tosses the dart, Dennis bursts in through the front door, beelining for the bar, barely acknowledging Mac and Charlie as he does.

When Dennis says he doesn’t want to be a gay bar anymore, Mac feels his heart sink, insisting he’s blown his last chance at something his brain won’t acknowledge.  _That’s it. I blew it. Never again._ His next thought is that he should have taken Dennis up on his offer and he is immediately ashamed.

What he says is, “Oh no, what happened?”, hoping he’s sarcastic enough to sound like he doesn’t mean it.

Dennis shakes his head, and reaches for the orange juice.  He won’t look at Mac and Charlie as he speaks. “I was doing some thinking, you know, and I’m glad we had our little experiment, but—“ (the next words come out in a tumble, in a single breath)—“we should go back to normal.”

Mac doesn’t flinch. He strikes back, sarcasm dripping, “So you had your little experiment, and you want to go back to way it was _before_ the experiment?”

“With the bar!” Dennis almost shouts. “We had the experiment with the bar, and it was great; let’s go back to normal.”

“So, you’re done experimenting then? Or do you want to experiment some more?”

Charlie looks at him through narrowed eyes. _Shit._

“Dude, what experiment? What are you guys talking about?”

There’s a silence that lasts a second too long. “Nothing,” Mac says. Dennis swallows a deep draught of orange juice then slams the glass on the bar, and the resounding thud reverberates through the tension in the air. Charlie glances first at Dennis, then at Mac, and shrugs.

So Mac doesn’t put up a fight when they decide to shut down the gay bar although a part of him aches. He’d meant what he said to Charlie, that he was OK with it. He’d been reassured by everyone’s nonchalance about their new clientele. A glimmer of possibility sparked in his mind: about who he could be, and that would be all right. But he pushes the disappointment back down inside. If he starts drinking hard alcohol at noon today, it’s not all that different from what he does every day.

 

 

Mac doesn’t go to Mass the next morning. _Why bother? Nothing happened. Nothing’s going to happen._ He stops praying, skips church more Sundays than not. Dennis notices but doesn’t ask questions. They find ways to avoid each other in their small apartment; they barely acknowledge each other at the bar beyond barking orders.

He’s angry at God, _for the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away._ Being angry at God is one of the worst sins he can think of, maybe even more bad than being gay. He can’t help himself, though, can’t force himself through the heavy tall doors and into the dark church without feeling his fingers curling up into fists. _The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away._ The first thing the Lord took away was Mac’s father. Now he’s taken away Mac’s best friend and Mac can’t help but suspect that it’s punishment. The Lord is a cruel bastard.

 _Lord I try to be good,_ Mac thinks as he gathers up all the shot glasses in the apartment, pouring a shot of tequila in each, and he slams them down one after another, lining them all up in a row on the coffee table after draining them dry. He’s slumped over the couch, still drunk, blankly staring at the TV when Dennis comes home from closing the bar.

“Damn man, who are you trying to forget?” Dennis jokes as he takes off his jacket. He fills one of the glasses with the last of the tequila and tosses it back before heading to his room to pass out. Mac waits until he hears the door slam shut before he answers: _You._ It’s the most they’ve bothered to say to each other in weeks.

The next morning Mac’s still drunk when he wakes up. Shitty and dehydrated, he drags himself to Mass for the first time in weeks. He gets down on his knees in the confessional and asks the Lord to forgive him, listens to the priest sigh and assign him his penance.

Mac recites the Apostle’s Creed until his voice cracks. _Oh my Jesus, have mercy on us. Forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell. Take all our souls into heaven, especially those most in need of your mercy. Amen._

 _Especially those most in need of your mercy._ Mac thinks that he might count.

 

 

Things go back to normal after that. Dennis greets him at the bar for the first time since they became an Irish Catholic bar again, that morning after mass, so Mac figures God listens. _Lord, hear our prayer._ Things always go back to normal for them. They drink too much, enough that turning the bar into an underage hotspot or attempting to buy illegal guns seem like perfectly good decisions at the time. Despite the close calls, the gang manages to escape by the skin of their teeth, just like they always do.


	5. i will be your accident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your slim frame  
> Your eager eyes and your wild mane  
> Oh, they keep me where I belong  
> All wrapped up in wrong
> 
> You’re to blame  
> For wasted words of sad refrain  
> Let them take me where they may  
> Believe me when I say
> 
> I will be your accident  
> If you will be my ambulance  
> And I will be your screech and crash  
> If you will be my crutch and cast  
> I will be your one more time  
> If you will be my one last chance”  
> \--TV on the Radio, Ambulance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the introduction of frank! some dialogue from season 2 episode 1 to establish frank's position in the gang. also dialogue from season 2 episode 3 (mac bangs dennis's mom) to set the stage for banging. there's butt stuff in this chapter, but don't lie, that's what you came here for.

The next year, Dennis’s dad Frank returns. He’s an ugly, ruthless troll of a man, and at first it’s hard to believe how he could in any way be related to Dennis and Dee--until he starts talking, at which point it’s obvious that they are all three cut from the same horrible cloth.

In all honesty, Mac barely remembers Frank from their high school years. He’d always been away on business or working late. When he was home, Dennis was less keen to hang out at his place, and always suggested staying at Mac or Charlie’s. Mac suspects that it wasn’t a coincidence, either--having Frank around seems to awaken the anger he’d seen on Dennis’s face during Paddy’s last night as a gay bar more often. Dennis is volatile and ever more ruthless in his schemes, almost as if he’s desperate to prove he doesn’t need Frank, doesn’t need the man’s money (but of course he does, it’s Frank’s damn money that bought the bar in the first place). Not that it matters who owns the bar anyways, not when that damn Jew businessman buys the building next door--and half the property that Paddy’s is built on.

All their plots to thwart the damn Jew fail, so the only thing left is to throw a bag of flaming poop through the windows. Just like everything else they do, it goes horribly awry, and they end up blowing the whole building up (goddamn it, how were they supposed to know about the gas leak, anyway? It wasn’t their fault, more like the Jew’s fault for trying to force them off their land…). Frank buys the land then issues the four of them an ultimatum: either the gang accepts him as the owner or he throws them into jail for the destruction of his property.

“I’ll give you two choices. Either I’m part of the gang--or--” Frank pauses with a maniacal grin, “or… I send your asses to jail.”

“I would rather go to jail,” Dennis moves forward in his seat, towering over the diminutive Frank Reynolds, hatred in his voice, “than work with you.”

Dee is quick to agree. But Mac’s dad in in jail, has been for a decade now. He has no interest in joining him in prison. “Just for the record, I would rather _not_ spend my life in jail--”

Dennis cuts him off, his voice rising in anger. “I will tear this bar _to the ground--”_

“I will kick the pillars in!” Dee shrieks, spastically kicking at the air.

“No she won’t, no, she won’t!” Mac exclaims, grabbing onto Dee’s foot to keep her from destroying anything. It doesn’t accomplish much besides more yelling and bruised shins. When the Reynolds twins get this worked up about something, nothing is safe from their combined fury.

“OK, OK, here’s what we’re going to do,” Charlie says loudly, trying to be heard over the madness. “Congratulations, Frank, you are now the leader of the gang.”

“What the fuck?” Dennis snarls.

“No way. No fucking way. Why can’t you just die and leave all your money to your children like normal parents do!”

Of course that’s when the detectives walk in with the Jihad tape that Charlie was supposed to destroy. Frank pays for the best lawyer in town to defend them, changing the gang’s dynamic irrevocably. He moves into Charlie’s apartment to dwell among the rats and the filth like the degenerate he is.

Frank and Charlie’s lifestyle becomes utterly depraved--suddenly Charlie has someone to play Nightcrawlers and go under the bridge with that isn’t Mac, and he’s not sure whether to relieved that he no longer has to indulge Charlie’s strange games and weird obsessions or be worried that Frank is going to destroy Charlie completely. Dee desperately tries to make friends and is rebuffed by all the patrons of the bar for being utterly horrible and squawking like a bird all the time. In the midst of all the chaos, Dennis and Mac create a fortress around them. No matter what happens, they have each other; that will never change.

 

 

Then Mac bangs Dennis’s mom. He’s not sure how it happened, really--he’d just stopped by to pick up Frank’s toupee when she drops her robe to reveal she’s not wearing anything underneath. At first he manages to resist, running straight to the bar where he runs into Dennis, who’s got his arm around that weird waitress that Charlie’s been obsessed with for like _years_ already.

“What’s up buddy?” Dennis greets him. “What’s that?” he asks, nodding to the toupee Mac is clutching in his hands.

“Just… just your dad’s hair.”

“Ugh, _gross_ .” Dennis and the waitress exchange a look that says, _How weird._ Normally Mac would fight back, make some comment insinuating how small Dennis’s dick is or how he’s bad at sex, but he awkwardly excuses himself to the back office to talk to Charlie. Despite his new position as bar manager and Frank’s assistant, he’s still _Charlie,_ he’s still someone Mac can trust, so he slams the office door behind him and all the words come tumbling out--”I think I wanna bang her man, I know I shouldn’t do it, but--”

“I think you should do it.”

“What?” He hadn’t been expecting that.

Charlie drums his fingers on the desk in contemplation: “Look, an opportunity like this only comes around once in a lifetime, right?”

“Right!”

“And so you’d be a fool to let it slip through your fingers.”

That’s all Mac needs to hear. He tosses the hair to Charlie, and heads back over to the big house in the nice part of town.

Except, of course, it’s a terrible idea. Not the sex (the sex is awesome, like _really_ special, completely unlike any of his other encounters with women, which were usually completely awkward and unpleasant for everybody involved). Immediately afterward, she gets out of bed and begins fixing her hair in the mirror, eying Mac’s reflection as he lies and rhapsodizes about what has passed between them. “Look, you’re not going to start talking about your feelings and shit, are you?” she asks.

“No. Gay….” Mac shakes his head. “Unless you want to…”

Dennis’s mom stops preening in the mirror and turns to him. “No,” she says, putting one hand on her hip. “I’ve got a better plan.” And she drags him out of bed and to the door almost before he can finish putting on his clothes. When he asks for a goodbye kiss, he doesn’t realize that he has walked right into Charlie’s master plan.

Mac bangs on the door, but Barbara doesn’t answer. So he turns and walks down the driveway, head down, shoulders slumped, the weight of rejection making his body impossibly heavy. He doesn’t notice Dennis standing in the front yard until he walks into him.

“Hey.”

“Oh shit.” Mac’s eyes widen; he’s caught. He turns to run, but Dennis catches him by the shoulders and there’s no escaping this.

“No, Mac… It’s OK, it’s all right. Listen…” Dennis is talking softly, almost whispering.

“Let me explain,” Mac protests. “Just let me explain!”

“I understand.” He’s talking in the same calm voice; Mac finds it unsettling.

“You do?”

“I think I know how you’re feeling.”

“That is such a relief!” Mac exhales, feeling his guilt evaporate...

Dennis steps toward him with his arms extended, and Mac steps into them, expecting a hug. But instead Dennis slaps him in the face, and Mac surges at him, tackling him to the ground. They grapple at each other there on the front lawn, for the whole neighborhood to see. The two of them fight dirty--they punch and kick and bite ruthlessly, each trying to push the other to the breaking point. It’s the closest they’ve been in months, and it’s intoxicating. It’s too much like the last time, when Mac had pinned Dennis between his body and the bar.

Mac can smell the sweet ripe scent of Dennis’s sweat as he tries to pin him, make him beg for mercy. Suddenly Dennis stops fighting. He rests his lips against Mac’s neck, and breathes out. Mac groans, one of his hands relaxing their grip on Dennis’s wrists to caress him. But he’s mistaken; it’s not a kiss, it’s a sneer. “You banged my mom, because that’s the closest you’ll ever get to fucking me,” Dennis whispers.

Mac whines, he pushes Dennis’s wrists down into the grass below him, “Your mom is a vindictive bitch. Just like you.”

“You were probably thinking about me the entire time.” Dennis wriggles against him slyly and their groins touch, filling Mac with the kind of heat that has nothing to do with physical exertion. In retaliation, Mac spits on his face, and Dennis surges with adrenaline, tossing Mac off of him.

“I felt your dick get hard, you little bitch,” he mutters, brushing the dirt off of his jacket, kicking a clod of grass in Mac’s direction. Mac picks himself up off the ground, not bothering to deny it. There’s no way he could say the words without making them sound like a lie. There’s no way he could choke them past the desire in his throat.

They drive to the bar together, Dennis behind the wheel, hanging on with a white-knuckle grip. They turn up the music and drive in silence. The words Dennis had breathed against his throat _(you were thinking about me the whole time)_ linger like a bruise. But they go the bar and watch the waitress yell about banging Frank in retaliation for Dennis banging old ladies, watch Charlie melt down. It ends like it always does—everyone screaming and drinking until they manage to forget why they were fighting anyway. They walk away from the bar before they light fire to it and each other.

“Don’t you ever fuck my mom again,” Dennis says, the words swelling around them in the alley.

“Hey, man… I’m sorry.” Mac means it. He’s a sinner, but he can do better. He can repent.

Despite their drunkenness, the two of them walk home in step, not bothering to say anything else until Dennis grabs his hand by the wrist. “Damn it, dude, what was that all about,” Mac snaps, yanking his hand back, but Dennis is holding on tight and Mac can’t extricate himself from his grip.

“Look,” Dennis nods. There’s a pile of shit so big it had come either from a person or dog the size of a pony just a couple of inches to the left of Mac’s foot. Mac nods. He doesn’t bother with _thank you,_ but he also doesn’t let go of Dennis’s hand as they walk home, not until they reach the front door of their apartment building and Mac has to check all of his pockets twice before he finds the keys.

 

 

The truce holds for three days before it breaks. It’s their day off, and the two of them are drinking in the living room, watching Rocky for the twentieth time in silence. It’s been strangely calm after their fight, but Mac’s not reassured. It’s like a river—dangerous currents flow beneath the surface; before you know it, you’re caught up in them as they drag to your death.

“Hey, bud, you wanna another beer?” Dennis slurs. Mac nods. Dennis stumbles to the fridge and Mac hears the pop of the caps as he opens the bottles. Mac closes his eyes, listening to his friend knocking about the kitchen.

His eyes are still closed when Dennis returns to the living room. He presses the cold bottle to Mac’s warm neck. “Drink up.” Mac obliges. Except when he opens his mouth Dennis doesn’t pour the beer in. Instead, he puts his tongue inside Mac’s mouth. The tension of the last three days breaks and they are drowning in each other, carried away by the strength of the current around them.

The kiss escalates. They’re rutting against each other, panting wildly; Dennis pushes his cold hands under Mac’s tshirt. The contact is intoxicating--the touch awakens a hunger in Mac, and every secret desire he has ever had for his best friend bubbles to the surface, all at once. With a groan, Mac undoes the buttons of Dennis’s shirt, tweaking the little pink nipples until they go stiff; he undoes the buttons of Dennis’s fly. Dennis obediently sheds his clothes as Mac undresses himself.

They’ve never been like this before, completely naked for one another. Mac can see every scar and freckle on Dennis’s body, and aches to trace and lick each one. He’s stunned into stillness—this, more than anything, what Mac has barely allowed himself to dream—was right here, in front of him, his for the taking.

He pushes Dennis onto his stomach, deciding instead to stroke the inside of his thighs, gently nudging Dennis’s balls with the back of his hands as he strokes. Dennis vibrates like a violin under his fingers. He takes in the sight of Dennis’s slim, yet well-muscled ass, on display before him, his stroking hands sliding from Dennis’s slender thighs to his ass and Dennis moans softly, losing his composure.

Mac kisses at the top of his crack, leaving a slick of saliva as he pulls away. He pushes the cheeks apart and stares at Dennis’s asshole, small and pink and so inviting. When he rubs his thumb across it, Dennis exhales. “That’s what you want, Mac, that’s what you want?” and so Mac spits on his hand and pops his thumb inside.

Dennis groans against the cushions. Mac pops his thumb out of his hole, then drags Dennis to his knees in front of the couch, ass in the air. Spitting on his hand, he slicks up his index and middle fingers til they shine and presses them into Dennis’s tight pink asshole, letting himself get off on Dennis’s quiet gasps. He’d done this before, but only to himself, only on the nights he can’t sleep listening to Dennis fucking one of his conquests in the neighboring room, thinking about how it would be if he were the one Dennis was fucking with so much intensity that the headboard knocked against the wall in rhythmic thumps. He’s gotten pretty good at this, and he wants Dennis to know, wants to give him the kind of pleasure that the endless string of women in his bed can’t. Finally, Dennis exhales and relaxes enough for Mac to feel around in the hot hole for the hard nub of Dennis’s prostate.

When he finds it, Dennis yelps louder than anything he’s ever heard and his dick jumps in Mac’s hand. Mac hits the little bump again. “Fuck, Mac,” he moans. “Do that again.”

This is beautiful. It’s better than anything, to see Dennis undone. Dennis always bragged about his self-mastery, his perfect control over his own body, but now his body was under Mac’s control and it thrilled him utterly. “You want more?” he breathes, stroking faster on Dennis’s cock, then letting go as the thrusts his fingers as deep as they will go. His shiny red cock bounces against his stomach and Dennis whines, reaching for his throbbing dick.

Mac was teasing him, but he swats Dennis’s hands away. “Not yet. You can’t come yet.” He caresses Dennis’s asscheeks. “Not til I’ve fucked your asshole raw with my fingers,” he says, punctuating his words with another brutal thrust of his hand.

Dennis curses. But Mac’s going to enjoy this for everything it’s worth and he doesn’t give in until the curses turn to into the kind of words that feed his hunger— _Mac please. Please let me come. Please_ —and he speeds the stroking of Dennis’s dick to match the fingers in his ass until Dennis comes with a soft scream all over Mac’s fingers and the cushions of the couch.

When Dennis finally stops squirting, Mac grabs at his own neglected cock with a roar, then pushes Dennis’s ass into the air, jerking himself wildly onto Dennis’s perfect pale ass, the small hole pink and swollen from his earlier ministrations. The sight is too much and Mac comes all over Dennis, thrusting between the cheeks as his semen splatters everywhere.

He collapses down onto Dennis, who is still bent over the couch. Mac rests his face against his neck and breathes in his woody cologne and his sweet sweet sex, sucking softly until Dennis nudges him off.

“You’re fucking heavy dude,” Dennis mutters. Mac agrees, and they laugh. For the first time, they are kind to one another in the aftermath. No one runs or yells. Instead Dennis stands up and offers Mac his hand, and they walk together to his bedroom like they’ve done it a thousand times before. They don’t spoon, but their shoulders press together as their legs tangle under the sheets and their breathing starts to slow.

Before they drift into sleep, Dennis asks him. “Was mine better?”

Mac’s head is foggy. “Better than what?”

Dennis narrows his eyes at him. “Whose pussy do you like better? My mom’s, or mine?”

“Jesus Christ, Dennis.” It’s such a vulgar question. Mac’s a good Catholic boy at heart; he’s taken aback by how crude the words sound when they're spoken aloud.

“You had your fingers in my asshole, I think you can tell.” Dennis says it so matter-of-fact, like he says the words all the time.

Mac rubs his forehead. “Your pussy’s tighter than hers, Dennis.” He trips over the words, can barely believe that no one’s coming to was his mouth out with soap for saying something so filthy.

Dennis cracks a sly smile and brushes a kiss behind Mac’s ear, then falls asleep just like that. Mac tries to close his eyes but can’t calm the adrenaline in his veins so he lies quietly, watching the streetlight trickle through the windows and across the bones of Dennis’s face. It’s a long time before he drifts to sleep--long enough that he’s sure he’s memorized the shape of Dennis’s skull in the dark, just in case he never gets to see the sight again.

 

 

In the morning, they don’t talk about it, this thing they do in the dark. Dennis wakes up before Mac does; he’s sitting at the kitchen table when Mac walks in wearing nothing except his tattered blue robe. “There’s coffee. Fresh, too,” Dennis breaks the silence and Mac pours himself a cup, black. They sit across from each other at the table, eating cereal and drinking coffee like any other morning. Like nothing that happened last night matters.

Maybe it doesn’t have to. Maybe they can go on like this forever, in a fervor of fasting and feasting on each other’s bodies when the hunger gets too hard to bear.

But Dennis breaks the silence, stands and clears his throat. “I gotta head to the bar early today. We’re getting a shipment from the beverage guys this morning, and I don’t trust Charlie to make sure the order’s right. I’m not altogether sure he can read the invoice properly.”

Mac grins at the cheap joke, and Dennis smiles back. For a moment, the energy around them is electric. Yet when Dennis attempts to ruffle his hair, Mac goes rigid, his spine as straight and stiff as he can make it.

“So it’s like that, then,” Dennis says, and the words explode in Mac’s eardrums like bombs.

As he leaves the room, Dennis hurls his mug at the wall. Mac spends the remainder of the morning mopping up the spilled coffee and picking the shards up off the floor. When he arrives at the bar at noon, Dennis is already gone.

 

 

“Hey, boner,” Dee chirps. “What the fuck was Dennis’s deal this morning?”

Mac shrugs and clears his throat. “Dunno. He was out early today.” His voice catches on the lie. Dee raises her eyebrow, but to her credit, she doesn’t push. “Why? Did he seem… different?” He looks her in the eyes, hoping it will make his act more convincing.

Dee shakes her head, but she doesn’t break eye contact as she pops open a beer, passing it down the bar to Mac, who graciously accepts. “I guess he was just in one of his moods.”

Mac cocks his head, but Dee doesn’t say anything more, just continues silently stocking the bar. He drinks his beer in silence and lets the alcohol calm his singing nerves before he joins her, but all day he can’t shake the feeling of something watching even though when he looks over his shoulder no one’s there. It could be Jesus watching over him; it could be Satan stalking him. Or maybe it’s nothing at all.

By the time Mac gets home from the bar, Dennis is back to his normal self--showered and meticulously groomed, dressed in a smart shirt and jeans, slowly drinking himself to oblivion on the couch. But all his edges seem somehow sharper; when he grins his teeth glint like knives. His laughter sounds like breaking glass.

Dee’s the one who attends acting classes weekly like religion, but Mac wonders if Dennis is the born actor in the family. If it weren’t for the sensation that he’s being watched, Mac thinks he might be fooled, might believe that the Dennis beside him in the same Dennis he’s always been. But since he knows better, he grabs a beer from the sixer on the end table as he sits on the couch next to his friend, careful to leave enough space between them so their thighs don’t touch. Nobody moves and nobody talks and the night slowly creeps toward dawn and everything is bathed in the flickering blue light of the TV.


	6. if this is heaven then i don't know what it's for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Trapped in a prison  
> In a prison of lies  
> Alone in the darkness  
> The darkness is wide  
> We fell in love, alone on a stage  
> In the reflective age
> 
> If this is heaven,  
> I don’t know what it’s for  
> If I can’t find you there  
> I don’t care
> 
> I thought I’d found a way to enter  
> It’s just a reflector (just a reflector)  
> I thought I’d found a connector  
> It’s just a reflector (just a reflector)"  
> \--Arcade Fire, Reflektor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season 3. references "the gang gets held hostage" and "mac is a serial killer". all the usual warnings apply--transphobic language, repressed homosexuality, dennis being creepy, etc.
> 
> this chapter and the next took a long time to write! I originally wrote them before rewatching seasons 3 and 4 and the first drafts were all out of order. hopefully i got it right this time.

When Dennis’s mom dies, something in him shatters. He’s angry all the time, mocking Dee with savage vehemence, recklessly challenging Frank, who always manages to retaliate with a barbarism that tears Dennis into pieces in its aftermath.

For the first time, he turns his cruelty on Mac-- _your hair looks stupid and your daddy doesn’t love you._ Mac bites his tongue until he tastes iron. His hands curl into fists until his palms leak blood. But Mac doesn’t fire back, just lets Dennis wear himself out. Dennis might cry, but he never apologizes, just works himself up into an impossible frenzy until he burns himself out and sleeps for an entire day. On the days when Dennis doesn’t show up to work, Mac covers for him, makes excuses. If the gang has their suspicions, well they don’t bother asking questions. Maybe they are thankful for the reprieve.  

 

 

Sometimes the shit they do catches up to them: Their archenemies the McPoyles hold them hostage that fall. It was the most horrible thing Mac had ever experienced--they’d had to wear bathrobes and drink warm milk. They hadn’t even been allowed to drink _beer,_ and as far as Mac can tell, the only reason they didn’t all get the DT’s is that they all had Stockholm syndrome.

In all the chaos, he confesses _Dennis, I love you._ Dennis doesn't even bother to acknowledge him. In nearly 20 years of friendship, they’ve never once said those words. Mac thinks they won't be getting out of this alive--this is God, punishing them for all their horrible acts, he is sure of it. If he’s going to die for his sins, he might as well add one more.

Just when he’s sure it’s the end, _this_ is how they die, Charlie and Frank tumble from the vents. Mac doesn't approve of Frank’s need to be constantly packing but he concedes a hostage situation is a completely appropriate occasion for firearms.

 

 

Once Mac and Dennis have showered (you have to shower after dealing with the McPoyles, it's the only way; they made you feel dirty in ways you never knew existed) they sit at the kitchen table drinking beer in easy camaraderie, some fancy microbrew shit that Dennis bought. Mac has to admit that they go down easy--there's only four bottles left, and after a day like today, they are going to need more than that for sure.

After they finish the beer, they ignore all common sense and take shots of the only bottle they have left in the apartment--an ancient bottle of Kaluha (they’ve been drinking at a savage pace; lately, they can’t keep liquor in the house). It’s disgusting because of _course_ it is, no healthy person drinks straight Kaluha of questionable vintage. Well. Here they are.

“This is terrible. We own a bar. There's no excuse for not having anything else to drink around the house,” Dennis complains.

Mac drinks and makes a face. The Kaluha tastes like coffee and curdled milk. “It was your idea to drink tequila last night.”

“Well, it was _your_ idea to drink the rum after that.”

“Well, I never would've drank the rum if you hadn't been slamming the tequila!”

It's ridiculous, an argument about nothing. They’d hardly escaped with their lives from the sweaty Hell the McPoyles rained upon them, and they're arguing already. Mac meets Dennis’s eye and they burst out laughing so hard they have to hold each other up straight.

Suddenly Dennis is everywhere Mac can see but he still he doesn't see it coming. The kiss is as tender as two people like them could ever be, and it lingers for a long time before Mac breaks it.

He shakes his head and wipes his mouth with his hand. “What--why would you--”

“You said you loved me back there.”

Mac is cornered. “I lied.”

“Maybe you were lying then,” Dennis says. “Maybe you’re lying now.”

It's a challenge, it has to be. Mac hears, _are you man enough to say that again?_

He won’t say it. It's stupid to fall in love with someone as selfish as Dennis. He’s not going to make it worse by admitting it. “People say things they don't mean all the time.”

Dennis storms off to the living room then, with the Kaluha in hand. He takes a spiteful sip. “You don't get to take it back. You can’t take it back.”

“I already did.” The defiance in Mac’s voice swells in his chest. He crosses his arms against himself and leans against the counter.

His defiance enrages Dennis. “What about the time we kissed in the alley? Do you take that back? Or maybe the time you put your fingers in my ass? Do you take that back, too?”

Mac is floored. “I take it all back, you bastard.” He tries to make himself look Dennis in the eyes, to say it like he means it. But he can’t.

Dennis notices. “You’re a coward,” he says. “Go. Go run away and pray the gay away. See if God cares enough to listen you.” He chugs the last of the Kaluha in great choking gulps. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”

He throws the bottle without force; it bounces, doesn’t break. Seeing Dennis go blank is worse than watching one of his rages. He’s capable of anything. But he doesn’t rush at Mac, doesn’t slap or punch or yell. He just puts on his shoes and jacket and leaves Mac frozen in the kitchen.

Mac picks the bottle of Kaluha up off the floor, holds it upside down and lets the awful dregs drip into his mouth. There’s a small chip in the mouth of the bottle and it slices his lip; some blood trickles into his mouth with the last of the awful coffee liqueur. He presses a paper towel against his bleeding lip and tries not to feel but it courses through his veins and spills out onto his face like the blood on his chin.

Suddenly he understands Charlie’s appreciation of inhalants. It would be so easy to just huff enough lighter fluid to forget the last twenty years. He could be a better man, he thinks he still has the potential somewhere to stop fucking up his own life and the life of everyone he comes into contact with.

At least for now, the thought that _there could be more to life_ is enough to resist the temptation to do any Charlie drugs, as alluring as it would be to do it all over, and do it all differently. He has some shitty weed in his underwear drawer, so he smokes two joints in rapid succession, jerks off, and falls asleep. It's been a long day.

 

 

Dennis brings a stranger home that night, he’s on a fucking spree, D.E.N.N.I.S’ing every halfway-decent girl he can. He’s doing it out of spite, and Mac knows, and doesn’t acknowledge it, which makes him flaunt his promiscuity even more.

Mac’s attentions are elsewhere, anyway: he’s started seeing someone new, the first _thing_ he’s had in his adult life that might be considered a relationship. Whenever possible, Mac sneaks off to see Carmen--at night after Dennis puts himself to bed, in between schemes. He feel like a teenager again, sneaking out to do something naughty.

He gets off the forbiddenness of fucking Carmen. After their first couple of fumbled gropings, he’d touched her penis hesitantly, asking permission, and she’d given it, had encouraged him to play with it, and it had been exhilarating. She’s a woman, so touching her dick doesn't fill him up with the same guilt that Dennis’s does. It makes sense when he explains it to himself.

Sometimes when they fuck doggy-style, Mac keeps his hands on her waist, careful not to touch her breasts. Her back is broad and her hips slim enough that he can imagine his best friend beneath him, taking his dick like the filthy slut that he is.

 

 

He’d really he believed he was getting away with it, until Charlie confronts him in the back office. Charlie asks him to stop what he's doing, and he breaks things off with Carmen, doesn’t give her a reason. She calls him a homophobe and he doesn’t bother to defend himself, can’t be bothered to explain. It’s not his fault but he doesn’t expect her to understand, he can barely understand it himself. Sometimes he wishes knew better. He’s learned enough to know he doesn’t.

As it turns out, he has absolutely no idea what anybody is talking about until Dee tricks him into her neighbor’s apartment. The whole gang confronts him with vague accusations until Charlie spells it out for them. “Don’t worry, Mac, I can save you, I’m gonna get you off this time. Don’t be afraid to show me your ugly side,” Charlie promises before asking, “Did you, or did you not, snap into an alternate and distinct personality causing you to go into a serial killing rampage?”

“What? No!” Mac crosses his arms, incredulous. His friends stare at him in disbelief.

“Yes, you did! Let the serial killer out, Mac! The serial killer!” Charlie’s shrieking in excitement.

This is insane. Does he actually have to say the words out loud? “Goddamn it, I’ve been fucking the tranny!” His friends protest-- _why are you always covered in scratches these days, what’s with the shady behavior, why were you sneaking around so much?_  “I didn’t want you to find out.”

That settled, Charlie opens the fridge to check for beer and discovers fifteen disembodied heads in various states of decay, all with stringy blonde hair. Gary barges in and Frank revs the chainsaw he’d insisted on carrying around everywhere lately and they make their escape. The five of them scatter in different directions, running as fast as they can. Dennis and Mac run and they don’t stop until they’re out of breath. Mac and Dennis rush at each other, high on adrenaline--they’re giddy as teenagers, laughing and pounding fists, talking shit.

“Can you believe it, dude? Gary was the killer all along!”

“Dude, what the fuck? I still can't believe that you guys thought I was a serial killer!”

“I still can't believe you’re banging the tranny,”  Dennis fires back.

“You banged Margaret, you slut.”

“So what. You banged a _man._ ”

“She’s a tranny!”

“You say that as if it’s better somehow.”

Mac flushes, shrugs. He’d known if Dennis were to find out, he’d fuck it up somehow for him. The man’s massive ego would make it all about _him_ somehow. At least Carmen actually liked him, which is more than he can say about Dennis. “She’s getting it cut off,” he says, as if that explains everything (it explains nothing). “Whatever. It didn’t work out.”

“ _Oh?_ ” Dennis is playing dirty.

Mac hates him in that minute. “Her dick--kept getting in the way. It got… gay.”

Dennis laughs, a terrible choking wheeze. “C’mon, dude. You’re in love with her penis. It’s probably the only reason you’ve banged her more than once.”

It’s only half true. “She works out more than any woman I know!” Carmen’s got a hard, hot body--he can feel the strength under the skin when he touches her, it's more exciting than the yielding flesh of the other women he’s boned.

“Admit it. You want her dick,” Dennis says. His voice is close, too close; Mac can feel him exhale the words against his neck. “Her dick is your favorite thing about her.” Mac doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe; most of all, he doesn’t admit that he’s spent more time lavishing attention on Carmen’s dick and balls than her tits during their encounters. Dennis’s eyes glint with fascination. “If it’s dick you want,” his voice dips down dangerously, “wouldn’t you prefer mine?”

Mac is frozen in his sight like prey. And Dennis is closing in on him, he kisses him right there in the street, pressing Mac against the chain link fence. Dennis swallows his tongue and won’t let go, keeps sucking until they’re both breathless. When they break apart, a string of saliva lingers between their mouths. “If you die on me,” Dennis whispers the words against his lips, Mac can feel the shape of his mouth shifting in the dark, “I’m going to keep your head in the freezer. To keep a piece of you just like this, forever.” He traces Mac’s lips with his fingertip. There's something in his eyes like reverie, like ecstasy, like madness.

“Dennis. What the fuck.” It’s not even a question. Mac is horrified--he extricates himself from Dennis’s grip. His blood, just moments ago boiling in his veins, has gone ice cold. He turns and runs, ignores his heart pounding through his chest as he accelerates to max speed.

“C’mon, man, I was just kidding!” Dennis calls after him, but Mac doesn’t believe him, doesn't forgive him, just keeps running, doesn’t stop until he’s sure he’s safe.

He locks himself in his room and gets down on his knees in front of the crucifix. He prays to God to save them both. In the hallway, a door slams; he hears Dennis walking to his room, hears the bedroom door click shut. But he doesn’t stop his supplication until he’s certain that he’s safe. _O God our Creator, enlighten and be merciful to those who fail to love, and give them peace. Amen._ Dennis won’t pray for his own salvation, so Mac does it for him, asks for God to heal his twisted psyche: _Be merciful to those who fail to love. Lord have mercy, have mercy on us._

If Dennis notices that Mac no longer disappears to spend time with his tranny girlfriend, he doesn’t say anything. Sometimes Mac catches Dennis staring at him the way he did when he had Mac trapped between his body and the chain link fence and told him he wanted to preserve his flesh forever, but he refuses to let Dennis hold him down and swallow his breath until he surrenders. Refuses to let himself think about how sweet his surrender would be.


	7. pretty girls don't know the things I know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I thought I saw the Devil this morning  
> Looking in the mirror  
> Drop of rum on my tongue  
> With the warning  
> To help me see myself clearer
> 
> I never meant to start a fire  
> I never meant to make you bleed
> 
> I'll be a better man today
> 
> I'll be good, I'll be good  
> And I'll love the world like I should  
> I'll be good, I'll be good  
> For all of the times I never could"  
> \--Jaymes Young, "I'll Be Good"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season 4. references "sweet dee has a heart attack" and "the nightman cometh".
> 
> everyone's an asshole. vomiting. alcoholism. brief mentions of kid diddling. dennis's pint of grappa is a nod to archer (goddamn it, i love that show).
> 
> i have a habit of writing sideways, mixing up all the episodes. ergo, this chapter took a lot of editing to fit into and i'm sick of looking at it. if there's any glaring errors with the canon, tell me, i'll fix it eventually. now is the time for tequila and shitposting. enjoy.

Sweet Dee has a heart attack in the spring. In a desperate bid against his rebellious genes for youth everlasting, Dennis gets black market Botox, Dennis stops eating. Within weeks, his cheekbones surface against the skin; the bones of his chest break through the atrophied muscle. He’s all jagged edges. One sudden movement, and his skeleton will sever itself from his skin, leaving nothing but a pile of bloodied flesh behind. It would serve him right, the asshole.  
  
Mac’s no housewife but he starts making dinner for them--simple fare, peasant food, chicken and rice and salad, hoping his friend will follow his example. Night after night, they sit at their kitchen table where Dennis doesn’t even bother to pretend to eat; instead he chainsmokes, sipping black coffee and watching while Mac chews and swallows, his own plate untouched.  
  
He lays down his fork and knife with a clatter. “This is crazy. You have to eat.”  
  
“What do you care?” Dennis glares. Mac can’t stand what he sees in those eyes (all the things within himself he cannot name reflect back at him); he looks away.  
  
“I don’t.” It’s the wrong thing to say; the tendons in Dennis’s neck grow tense and in the next moment he throws his plate against the wall. Mac refuses to clean up after him. Later that night, drunk as fuck, Mac forgets to put his shoes on to cross the kitchen on his way to piss after drinking half a handle of Wild Turkey and the shards rip the soles of his feet to shreds. He’s too drunk to care and his bloody footprints trace his steps all the way back to his room.  
  
In the morning, he’ll spend an hour tweezing the fragments from his feet; for a week, the scabs will tear open as he walks. The detritus from their disastrous dinner will fester and grow mold and Dennis will neither clean up nor apologize. He never apologizes. Mac doesn’t care (so what if it’s just another lie he tells himself? There are worse sins. Mac should know. He can name dozens that he’s committed in Dennis’s name after all).  


  
  
The dam holds until the night Dennis drinks a bottle of tequila on an empty stomach. Mac finds him on the couch, head in hand, the empty bottle open on the floor, ashtray overturned; the living room is in upheaval and Dennis is a disaster. It’s three in the morning, he’d just come home from the bar, the whole gang is starting to feel the strain of keeping the place from going under. He’s not drunk enough to deal with this, and too fucked up to care all at the same time.  
  
Mac carries him to the bathroom because there’s nothing else he can do, sits with Dennis as he pukes. “I don’t know why I bother,” he mutters, “it’s not like you’ll appreciate it in the morning.”  
  
Dennis retches, rests his cheek on the filthy toilet seat. Mac gets up. There’s nothing more for him to do. If his best friend wants to drink himself to death, let him. He’s no saint, he can’t save anyone, not even himself, God knows that best of all, so he won’t try.  
  
“Don’t leave me here. Not like this.” The voice is so soft that at first Mac thinks he must be hearing an echo of his own devotion. But Dennis is staring right at him, and Mac can see the impending storm clouding that blue gaze, darkening the blue irises until they’re the color of a hurricane.  
  
He doesn’t know why he listens, doesn’t know why he is powerless to protest. But he sinks down to sit on the tiled floor next to his friend, and Dennis shifts his body, leans against him, and Mac holds him upright. He’d known Dennis had lost weight recently, but he hadn’t realized just how much until now. Mac wonders if Dennis’s bones are hollow just like his bird-sister, it seems impossible that any grown-ass man could weigh so little and still hold himself upright otherwise.  
  
He can’t help himself--he reaches out and rakes his fingers through Dennis’s unruly curls, making soft soothing sounds. A few hairs cling to his fingers as he strokes them over the scalp. Dennis closes his eyes, his eyes and mouth red and raw in his grey face. There’s a string of saliva and vomit on his chin. “You’re a fucking mess, dude,” Mac murmurs. “You’re falling apart.”  
  
Dennis makes a strangled sound of assent, opens his mouth as if to speak. Whatever he might have said is interrupted by another wave of vomit. Mac waits for him to stop puking. After awhile, the heaving stops.  
  
“C’mon, let’s get you to bed,” Mac whispers, dragging Dennis to his feet by his shoulders. Dennis takes a tentative step on his own, and nearly collapses, breaking his fall with a desperate grab at Mac’s shirt, which tears in his hands so Mac has to catch him before he hits the ground. He doesn’t need Dennis giving himself a concussion in addition to the alcohol poisoning.  
  
“Damn it, Dennis,” he curses. “That was my favorite shirt.”  
  
“I’ll buy you--another one.” He belches. “One that’s not stupid.”  
  
Dennis’s words don’t break him; there’s no vehemence in them, it’s pathetic really, pathetic that he’s standing on the tiled floor in his torn shirt holding his pathetic, sloppy drunk best friend upright. Instead of fighting, Mac lets Dennis drape himself over his shoulders, and he drags him to his bedroom. When he lets go, Dennis collapses on the sheets with a moan.  
  
“God. Why can’t the walls just be _still_ ,” he moans, covering his eyes.  
  
“Dennis. The walls are where they always are. You just drank a whole bottle of tequila to the face.”  
  
“Feel like I’m gonna die,” Dennis moans.  
  
“Yeah, well, maybe you’d be able to hold your liquor better if you bothered to, I don’t know, eat something,” Mac says, unlacing Dennis’s shoes. Christ, even the man’s feet are full of bones; they’re cold as ice in his hands, and Mac absentmindedly massages them, trying to jump-start the circulation in his toes.  
  
“Mmmhmm,” Dennis breathes. “Feels nice.” But Mac lets go of Dennis’s bony feet and turns to leave, to let Dennis fester in this filthy room, let him die alone, like he deserves.  
  
He can’t sleep--he worries about Dennis dying in his sleep, choking on his vomit, the erratic beat of his atrophying heart slowing into stillness. With a sigh, Mac kicks himself free from the sheets, walking through the filth and fiasco of their living room. He doesn’t bother knocking on the door, just lets himself in, sinking down in the sheets next to Dennis, who hasn’t been sleeping either (he seems never to sleep lately; maybe that’s why he’d decided he needed to drink an entire bottle of alcohol tonight).  
  
“Knew you’d be back.” Only Dennis could be smug like this when he’s drunk as fuck.  
  
“You’re an asshole,” Mac mutters. “I should let you choke on your own puke and die in it.”  
  
Dennis nuzzles against him. “You won’t,” he says, smug as always. “You’d die of guilt.”  
  
It’s true, but Mac says nothing at all. Instead he gathers his friend’s frail body in his arms. Dennis’s breath is foul, smells like bile and brimstone. But Mac’s comforted by the fact that he keeps breathing, that his heart manages to keep beating. He stays up all night, knowing that if Dennis succeeds in destroying himself, it would destroy him too. Mac knows that it’s not healthy, it’s not right, but it _is_ and neither of them can put a stop to this.  
  
He doesn’t let himself drift into sleep until the sun stains the sky pink. When he wakes, he smells coffee brewing. Dennis is sitting at the table in the kitchen, spooning cereal into his mouth like a starving man (which is exactly what he is). There’s color in his cheeks replacing the awful grey pallor he’s worn for weeks; the dark circles beneath his eyes seem less like bruises and more like shadows.  
  
As the days pass, Dennis eats more, drinks less (but still too much, but so does everyone Mac knows, so he supposes that’s normal; if Dennis quit drinking completely he’d really have to worry). Finally the anger begins to ebb. Mac doesn't have to worry about him killing himself all the time anymore, doesn’t have to worry about Dennis snapping and taking the whole gang down too.  
  
He prays for Dennis, because the man is too damn proud to pray for himself, gets on his knees in front of his Savior and repeats the same words until they scratch his throat and suck the saliva out of his tongue. _O God, our creator, life is in your hands from conception until death. Enlighten and be merciful to those who fail to love. Amen._  


  
  
Charlie’s musical was doomed from the start. Why had they expected anything different? Nobody wants to see a musical about kid diddling. The way a musical emphasizes every major plot point with a song sends entirely the wrong message to the audience. A serious and well crafted drama, perhaps, where everybody gets their comeuppance and the audience can feel both sadness at how awful humans can be and awe at how the victims overcame and did exceptional things with their pain, now that might have been a winner at the box office, Mac supposes...  
  
But Charlie’s play is none of that. They’re none of that: they’ve certainly done nothing exceptional with their pain, they haven’t even quite managed to make anything _acceptable_ with their pain. “The Nightman Cometh” is another of those failures, just another occasion they do everything wrong. Dennis and Dee and Mac make it all about themselves, like they always do, and the audience laughs in all the wrong places, mocks them all equally and on their own merit.  
  
The rape scene, especially, had drawn uncomfortable laughter from the audience. Perhaps the boner had been  _too_ real, but it wasn’t Mac’s fault if he’d just gotten swept up in the character… “Don’t ruin this for me,” he’d whispered before remembering that he was still mic’d up. The audience laughed, and Mac has the way Dennis had stared at him under the blanket burned into his brain forever, even though it lasts only an instant before he pulls the blanket off and Mac lets him go, his dick rapidly deflating as the rape scene is cut tragically short.  
  
But it was OK, because in the end, Charlie was just manipulating them in an elaborate scheme to get close to the Waitress. It’s unnerving how often they find themselves pawns in one of Charlie’s schemes without knowing until it all blows up in their faces.  
  


  
It’s after the show. Mac’s drinking. Of course he’s drinking. This is how they deal with their lives, their disappointments, how they deal with being stuck to each other.  
  
Dennis helps himself to a shot of the tequila, doesn’t bother to ask.  
  
“Hey, dickhead, that Cuervo belongs to me. Get your own bottle.”  
  
Dennis makes a wry face as he takes another sip. “The only other thing we’ve got left is the grappa your weird Mafia buddy gave us last summer.”  
  
Mac takes the tequila away from him. “Good, because I’m going to need the whole thing.” Fuck it, he doesn't have to share.  
  
Dennis doesn’t argue. He pours himself a pint glass of grappa, braces himself, then takes a hesitant sip. It’s not as bad as he’d expected. The next sip is deep.  
  
“Jesus Christ, dude. What is wrong with you?” Mac says as he drinks his rum. “No one drinks a pint of grappa. It’s not healthy.”  
  
“It’s not bad.” He takes another drink, proving his point.  
  
“It’s pretty much pure alcohol.”  
  
Dennis ignores him, takes another defiant mouthful of grappa. “You had a boner.” It’s not a question.  
  
“So?”  
  
“You had a boner in the rape scene,” Dennis repeats.  
  
“Oh my God, dude, what do you want me to say?” Mac hits himself in the head. “What? _You’re so hot I couldn’t help myself?”_ Sarcasm drips from his voice. “Or maybe you’d prefer if I said, _I want you so bad I could choke myself?”_  
  
Dennis nods, he has the nerve to look satisfied, that asshole. “It is what you want, isn’t it.” It's a statement, the time for questions is over; Mac will throw accusations until he's run out of ammo. “You’re so fucking predictable.”  
  
“Am I?” Dennis grins. His lips shine wet with another mouthful of grappa.  
  
Mac knows Dennis is going to kiss him before he tastes it: the acrid grappa aftertaste burns his mouth. That doesn’t stop him from kissing back. Doesn’t stop the kiss from tasting sweet. Dennis’s tongue draws deep, traces his molars, slips underneath his own. Mac’s salivating, the heat pooling in his groin, his neglected boner pressing uncomfortably against his fly.  
  
He undoes the zipper of his jeans, and his dick strains between them. Dennis grabs him through his boxers, and Mac groans, thrusts into the warmth blindly, uttering “Make it up to me.”  
  
Dennis pulls Mac's cock out of the fly in his underwear, kisses the head of Mac’s dick, digs his fingernails into his skin as Mac’s hips thrash beneath him.  
  
“Yeah bitch. That’s my cock, bitch,” Mac moans all kinds of nonsense words. Dennis’s mouth is on his inner thigh, his hot breath drifts over his hot organ. He suckles Mac’s thigh, and Mac lets himself watch Dennis’s supplication, lets himself be teased. The touch makes his cock jump, and Dennis squeezes him in his hand, relaxes, and licks a wet swath against Mac’s stomach. The red swollen cockhead leaks precum onto his belly and Dennis laps it right up without a word.  
  
Mac chances another glance down into his lap. Dennis’s eyes are closed, and his lashes cast shadows over his cheeks as he draws Mac’s dick into his mouth, finally. He sucks softly, building intensity slowly. Mac lets himself be played, murmurs filth: _You’re so sexy. Yeah, suck me just like that,_ and the dirty words seem to encourage Dennis as he swallows desperately around Mac’s swollen flesh. He grabs at his own dick in a savage frenzy while he kneels between Mac’s legs, and when Mac comes, he feels Dennis spurt his load onto his feet even before Mac’s dick stops throbbing in his mouth.  
  
They lie next to each other, naked on the couch, in the aftermath. They can’t be kind to each other, it’s true. It’s their particular tragedy: every time something falls into place, one of them has to tear it down. Every time he might start to care, Dennis throws Mac’s good faith back into his face, seems to take an unseemly pleasure in every   _almost_ he offers up then takes back. They can’t be kind to each other but at least they can be quiet with each other, after the orgasm, even if it won’t last until morning.  
  
That night is the first night Mac ever lets himself think, _maybe God doesn’t know everything._ His fingertips skitter over Dennis’s chest, but Mac can’t feel his heart beating anywhere, not even when he uses both hands to search for his pulse. It occurs to Mac there are things beyond God’s comprehension, or beyond man’s conception of God, at least. They’re dangerous thoughts.  
  
Maybe at least as dangerous as what Mac really wants to say: _maybe the Devil knows a thing or two, after all_.


	8. he'll always get the best of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And I know he’ll be the death of me  
> At least we’ll both be numb  
> And he’ll always get the best of me  
> The worst is yet to come  
> But at least we’ll both be beautiful  
> We’ll stay forever young  
> This I know  
> This I know
> 
> He told me, don’t worry about it  
> He told me, don’t worry no more  
> We both know we can’t go without it  
> He told me, you’ll never be alone"  
> \--The Weeknd, Can’t Feel My Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had a lot to say about season five, evidently, so i broke it up into two chapters. references "the gang exploits the mortgage crisis" (part one) and "mac and dennis break up" (part two). there's sex and (domestic) violence and dirty words and a little bit of breathplay.
> 
> also, i gender-swapped the lyrics for the weeknd song above: the original uses female pronouns but this a gay story so we're gonna use gay words. fun bonus druggie trivia: "girl" is common code for cocaine, "boy" is heroin. so a simple gender swap changed the whole meaning of the song. whatever. i need to stop hanging out with the bridge people.

Franks buys a foreclosed house, and Mac and Dennis get drawn into his scheme to sell the house out from under the occupants, posing as real estate agents in matching mustard sport jackets. Dennis chooses their names--Hugh Honey and Vic Vinegar--it’s completely absurd, no one in real life has names like that, but Mac gets carried away by the momentum of the gang’s enthusiasm and slips into the character of Vic Vinegar like it’s a custom suit. After the successful showing of the foreclosed house, where Mac had intimidated the couple viewing the home into signing the deed, Dennis decides it’s time to take the act a step further. “C’mon, baby boy, it’s time to start a bidding war before Dee’s ovaries dry up.”

He dresses Mac in an outrageously preppy pink polo shirt and khakis scavenged from the back of his closer, tying a blue cashmere sweater of his own around around Mac’s shoulders. When Mac complains--”I look like a fag, dude”--Dennis narrows his eyes, insists that’s the whole point. “Look, dude, no one is going to believe that you’re the trophy husband to a successful real estate agent such as myself if you insist on wearing a goddamned sleeveless shirt.”

Mac concedes, but only because Dennis seems to be enjoying this, dressing him up and fixing his hair, molding him into some ideal version of himself. He can’t help the surge of pride in his chest when Dennis introduces him to the couple whose baby Dee will be carrying as “my partner in real estate and my partner in life”. Because he knows it will irritate Dennis, he can’t help but mention that _he’s_ the top in their relationship, can’t help but smirk when Dennis insists that may be so, but he’s a power bottom. The man can’t stand for anyone, even complete strangers, to think he’s in anything except perfect control every moment of his life.

 

 

Of course, Dee and the lawyer ruin everything for them. Still, the occasion calls for tequila, the patron alcohol of bad life decisions. Mac grabs the bottle they keep in the freezer and two shot glasses as Dennis busies himself slicing limes and hunting down the salt shaker in their messy kitchen. They’re still wearing their ridiculous country-club costumes when they clink their glasses in a toast.

“To Hugh Honey and Vic Vinegar, partners in real estate and partners in life!” Dennis crows in jubilation. Mac laughs--it’s ludicrous to think that he and Dennis could be anyone other than who they are, two almost certainly alcoholic bartenders at one of the worst bars in Philadelphia. It’s been so long since Mac has been able to even imagine something different; it’s fun to pretend that they could be anything else. They slam shot after shot, toasting to ever-more-absurd occasions: _To the mortgage crisis! To inground pools! To Dee’s baby bird!_

Dennis is sunburned, the bridge of his nose and his cheeks pink from their afternoon at the pool. Mac can’t help himself, he strokes the reddened skin softly. Dennis’s eyes drift half-closed and he leans into the touch. Sober Dennis would never allow this, but drunk Dennis nuzzles against Mac’s tentative fingers like an affectionate, oversize cat. “Does it hurt?” Mac asks. Dennis opens his eyes in question. “You’re burned,” he breathes in explanation.

“A little,” Dennis admits. Mac grabs for the tequila bottle--the glass bottle is still cold from the freezer although it’s already half empty, it’s a good tequila, _goddamn_ it goes down easy--and presses the cool glass against Dennis’s cheek. The gesture is tender in a way they never are with each other, and Dennis’s deep blue eyes glint with unasked questions beneath his thick lashes.

Dennis hasn’t breathed a word, but Mac knows the answer. He closes his eyes; he breathes Dennis in. “You can’t,” he says. His fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle, and he withdraws his hand from Dennis’s face before he can put words to the inquiry in his eyes, pours another round of shots.

He’d forgotten that telling Dennis he can’t do something is the quickest way to get him to do exactly that (or maybe he knew it all along. Dennis is not the only one in the gang who excels at manipulating people, after all); Dennis grabs his hand in his, his blue eyes burning holes into Mac’s deep brown ones. Mac knows he’s drunk as fuck--he can barely swallow the tequila, nearly gagging as he tosses it back--and his mind swarms with bad ideas. With his free hand, Dennis pours another round of tequila shots; when he hands one to Mac he lets their fingers touch.  

Mac figures it won’t hurt. Dennis probably won’t remember; maybe, with any luck, he won’t either. If he can’t remember, he can’t confess. Mac prays Dennis won’t remember either when he grabs his wrist and sucks the salt off his hand, then swigs the tequila out of the glass in Dennis’s hand. Dennis is too drunk to react--he stares dumbfounded at the glass in his hand, his eyes flickering from the empty glass to Mac. 

It’s the last thing Mac remembers before he wakes up naked in Dennis’s bed, and a quick check under the blanket confirms Dennis is naked too with raw red marks spread along his collarbone, and Mac wishes he’d never looked because now his dick is stiff and he doesn’t want Dennis to catch him like this, naked and hard in his bed.

 _Father, I know not what I have done_ , he prays. (He’s lying. His body aches in all the right places. It’s the kind of hurt that hints at illicit pleasures, sin and sodomy.)

Dennis is still sleeping soundly when Mac slips out from between the sheets and picks his wrinkled clothes up from off the floor. He looks over his shoulder--Dennis is deep in sleep, snoring softly, utterly disheveled. Mac is heartened by the contrast between the meticulous awake-Dennis and this disarmed and sleeping Dennis. It's not a side of himself that Dennis often lets the world see. Mac thinks he’s probably one of the only people on Earth who’s ever seen him like this without the armor of perfectly coiffed hair and precisely tailored clothes; he can count on one hand the number of women who have stayed in Dennis’s bed til morning in all the years they’ve been living together.

Mac’s heart aches as he stands naked by the bed, yesterday’s ridiculous pink polo and blue cashmere sweater clutched against his chest. He wants to crawl back to bed and curl himself around Dennis’s still, sleeping form, rest his head on Dennis’s shoulder and attempt to decipher his dreams. But instead, he tiptoes from the room like a thief (he has stolen something, hasn’t he, by taking this glimpse of Dennis disarmed?), thankful that neither of them had had the presence of mind to shut the door behind them last night, too drunk on tequila and desire to bother.

He dresses stealthily; deciding a shower would be too risky, he puts on both of his colognes. Even in fresh clothing, he can smell sex on his skin--old sweat and something feral that corresponds with the dull ache inside him. He tries not to think what that could mean. A glance at the bedside clock confirms it’s barely 8 am. The apartment is a minefield, it's somehow too empty and catastrophically, claustrophobically crowded all at once. Somewhere in the distance, church bells ring faintly.

A fragment of Scripture rises unbidden to his lips-- _Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, it is an abomination... For whosoever shall commit these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore you shall keep mine ordinance, that you shall not commit any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that you not defile yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God._ The bells echo in the depths of Mac’s soul, ricocheting in the empty cavity where his heart should be.

He walks to church. The sun hurts his eyes; the traffic noise intensifies the pounding in his skull. The dark, cool interior of the church feels like salvation, but he can't sit still--the hard pews send shooting pains up his spine all through the sermon. _We are all born sinners,_ the priest says, _but God has given us the gift of confession. Through God’s mercy, our conscience is cleansed. We approach the Lord our God pure in heart._ Mac’s hands tremble when he turns the pages in the hymnal; the more he tries to focus on the words, the more they blur. His voice does not rise in praise with the rest of the congregants, it stays trapped in his chest, weighed down with the burden of his transgressions. The Communion wafer tastes like cardboard and sticks to his tongue. Even the blood of Christ, offered in the brass chalice by the aging priest, cannot wash it down. Mac knows it's the sin roiling inside his gut that keeps him from swallowing the gifts of Christ.

After Mass, he lingers by the confessionals, watching the procession of penitents line up for their absolution but he doesn't join them. He knows if he tried to confess whatever unspeakable acts he may have committed last night, he’d only end up gagging on the words as violently as Dee gags whenever she’s at an open mic night.

 

 

When he leaves the church, he means to go to the apartment and talk to Dennis, he really does. But instead he drags Charlie out of the bar basement to go throw rocks at trains. They’d missed the morning rush hour nursing their respective hangovers so the trains are few and the tracks are unusually quiet.

“Charlie?” Mac asks.

Charlie grunts as he tosses another rock at the empty tracks.

“Have you ever been in love with someone that you know you shouldn’t, but no matter what you do you can’t make yourself stop loving them even though you know it’s wrong?”

Charlie tries not to let Mac see him grimace (he’d come out here to throw rocks at trains; he hadn’t been prepared for this kind of thing).

But he grudgingly admits, “Yeah, bro. Of course I have.” Mac stares at him blankly until Charlie glares, and says “the Waitress”; then Mac sits up and says, “Oh, yeah!”

“Just because she had the restraining order that one time, that didn’t mean anything,” Charlie mutters. “I just waited until it expired and now I can go near her again.”

Mac snorts, tossing a rock onto the train tracks and trying not to meet Charlie’s eyes. He doesn’t know if he should be relieved that his friend has changed the subject. He doesn’t want to know what he did last night, after he blacked out… His body is full of confusing pains and something ricochets inside him that’s more like an echo, not quite a memory. “Bro, I don’t know if that’s how restraining orders work…”

Charlie glares. “What do you know about this shit anyway? When was the last time you had a girlfriend?”

“Bro, I’ve had so many women! I’m young, there’s no need to tie myself down to anyone yet.”

Charlie snorts. “Dude, the most long-term relationship _you’ve_ ever had is with an egomaniacal asshole who calls himself a ‘Golden God’ and will never love anyone more than he loves himself.”

Mac freezes mid-toss. Sometimes Charlie acts so dumb that Mac forgets that he’s the most perceptive person in the gang; it’s as if he’s learned how to compensate for never having learned to read or write or do any type of analytical thinking by developing an uncanny ability to figure out the answers by context alone. “I’m--Dennis and I aren’t--”

“Sure, bro. Whatever you say.” Charlie’s wearing the half-grin that he only uses when he knows he’s onto the vig.

“Fuck off, Charlie.” Mac tosses the rock as hard as he can. It shoots past the railroad tracks and hits the ground with a satisfying _thunk._

Charlie takes a turn, his rock landing squarely in the center of the tracks. “So what did you want to talk about, anyway?”

Mac shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Charlie cocks his head, but to his credit, he doesn’t push the issue. In the distance, a train whistle sounds, and the two of them grab a handful of rocks and get into position. Not even the satisfaction of three perfectly aimed tosses at the passing train does anything to alleviate the strange feeling Mac has--it’s as if Dennis has finally been successful at crawling into another man’s skin. He’s crawled under Mac’s and short of an exorcism, there’s no way he could get him out completely.

 

 

Their shared apartment is dark when he returns but Mac doesn’t bother to check on Dennis. Instead, he closes the curtains and climbs into the sheets and stares at the ceiling, willing himself to go to sleep.

But sleep is impossible. All Mac can think about is last night, trying to reconstruct the hours between his last shot of tequila and waking up naked in Dennis’s bed. There are things he maybe remembers, but they’re all so blurry he can’t tell if he’s dreamed them or if they really happened--a thing like a sigh, a sound in between a moan and his own name dripping off Dennis’s lips and into his ear.

His own dick trembles between his thighs, but he refuses to touch himself. Instead, he tosses and turns and tries to remember his prayers but his dick won’t let him.

Maybe it’s his imagination, but it sounds like Dennis is having a restless night of his own--every so often a thump hits the wall, but it’s quiet over there--no moaning, not like his women usually do. Discretion isn’t really a word in his vocabulary.

Mac taps the wall with his foot, and shortly afterward, he hears Dennis answer, the soft thump echoing in his room. All he can think is _what now?_ before the door to his room opens with a creak.

Dennis appears in silhouette in his doorway and at first Mac is sure that the Prince of Darkness has somehow found him. Before he can pray to God for his salvation, the shadow speaks his name--”Mac? You in here, baby boy?”--as if it’s both the question and the answer.

Mac sits up in bed. Dennis’s eyes are twin pools of liquid darkness as he approaches the bed, deeper somehow than the rest of him. He crosses the room in brisk, long strides, the eye contact between them as heavy as a caress.

Dennis grabs Mac by his throat, holding his jaw steady between thumb and fingers. Mac couldn’t pull away if he tried ( _you never see the devil coming ‘til he’s got you in his arms);_ he can barely breathe from the pressure. If his mouth opens in a gasp, he’s only gasping for air. It’s not like he opens his mouth to receive Dennis’s tongue, even though that’s what he ends up inhaling after all.

Dennis moans into his mouth, relaxing his grip on Mac’s throat. He sucks down a mouthful of Dennis’s saliva in a heaving breath, but he doesn’t choke, won't give Dennis the satisfaction--he’d get off on it, the sick fuck, and Mac isn’t going to be anyone’s bitch tonight. Dennis has already admitted to being the bottom, after all, and Mac will be damned if he lets Dennis forget.

Dennis crawls onto his lap, winding his arms and legs around Mac’s torso as he slides his asscrack against Mac’s dick. Their chests are pressed so closely together that Mac feels his heart against his chest, stuttering so violently he can believe that it will jump from his ribcage and splatter against Dennis’s skin.

Nothing moves in the room except their bodies, their breath ricocheting off the walls and echoing like an unholy homily. Mac is pinned down beneath Dennis’s weight; he can barely do anything more than roll his hips up against Dennis’s ass. Mac knows Dennis likes having him like this, completely at his mercy; he can feel Dennis’s dick jumping with excitement as he ruts senselessly against his body. The unholy harmony of their gasping breath rises into a crescendo. His soul is pressing against his skin, desperate to be freed.

“Dennis--” he whines, “Dennis, you’re going to make me--”

Dennis stops sucking on his collarbone, locks his eyes with Mac’s in the darkness. In answer, he bears down even harder against Mac’s dick, and Mac closes his eyes, throws his head back, and howls his orgasm into the night. Dennis is motionless, captivated by the violence of Mac’s release. He’s got that look in his eyes again, like he’s watching Mac through a microscope. But the stillness doesn’t last long--he pushes Mac’s hand down into his lap, squeezes the fingers around the hot hardness between his legs. Mac doesn’t need convincing, he strokes Dennis off ruthlessly, relentlessly pursuing his orgasm. In just a few minutes, Dennis lets go. The hot semen splashes on Mac’s shirt and sticks to his fingers. Absentmindedly, he brings his filthy fingers to Dennis’s lips, watches him hungrily suck them clean.

They fall into bed, still joined together from shoulders to shins. “I swear to God,” Dennis whispers, his voice rough around the edges, “if you try to make me leave I will murder you right here, in your own bed.”

Mac doesn’t say anything, he knows better than to think that Dennis won’t keep his word. He just ruffles Dennis’s hair, the sweaty curls sticking to his skin as they drift into sleep, a psalm on his lips: _May I love you in all things and above all things. Nothing is good that is against your will, and all that is good comes from your hand,_ and Mac’s not sure if he’s talking to God, or to Dennis, and it’s a sin, it’s a sacrilege--and he doesn’t care.


	9. we both know we can't live without it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He told me, don’t worry about it  
> He told me, don’t worry no more  
> We both know we can’t go without it  
> He told me, you’ll never be alone"  
> \--The Weeknd, Can’t Feel My Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season five, part two. some dialogue is from "mac and dennis break up". warning for some domestic violence and Dennis being an unhealthy and controlling person. i tried to make him as believable as possible, and it turns out having a narcissist for an ex is a pretty useful life experience when you're trying to emphasize with someone who has no feelings.

Of course, things change after that. Of course they do--first, the stream of women in and out of Dennis’s bed slows to a trickle, then dries up completely (Mac supposes that it’s only natural, after all, there’s no room in the sheets if he’s there nearly every night). Mac was naive to think they could stay the same. Their lives are spun together like thread, the fibers of Dennis’s being are wound into every aspect of his life.

They check in with each other nearly every hour they’re apart--it’s Dennis who initiates this ritual of theirs, Dennis who needs the reassurance. It begins one night after Mac and Charlie close the bar together.

“Hey man, what are you doing tonight?” Charlie asks he mops up the sick from the barroom floor; yet another one of their regulars had had a few too many drinks and had thrown up all over the floor and himself without bothering to get up from his stool or attempting to stumble to the bathroom or the alley. Mac supposes that it might have been irresponsible to keep serving the man alcohol once he had lost the ability to speak in coherent sentences, but then who knows what the guy might have done in his quest to slake his thirst? He could have robbed a liquor store or something, and then it would have been all their fault. No, it was much better to serve someone an irresponsible quantity of whiskey than be responsible for robbery or rape or worse.

Mac wipes down the bar with bleach to remove the last of the vomit spatter. “I dunno, I was just gonna go back to the apartment, maybe watch Predator with Dennis or something…”

At the mention of Dennis’s name, Charlie’s neck snaps up so he can look Mac in the eyes. He can tell that Charlie’s in one of his perceptive moods, so Mac backtracks. “But I dunno, it’s not like we have plans or anything. Why?”

“It’s just been a while since we hung out, man.” Charlie continues mopping the floor; he doesn't bother to meet Mac’s eyes.

“Charlie. We hang out every day!”

Charlie shrugs. “I mean, I see you at the bar every day, but that’s like, work, man! When was the last time hung out, just the two of us, like blood brothers?”

“We went to that arcade last week.”

“Goddamn it, Mac, you spent the entire night hanging onto Dennis!” Charlie squints as though he is trying to bring the situation into focus. “What’s up with you two lately? You’re _always_ together.”

“Noth--Nothing. Nothing’s up,” Mac says, the words coming a little too quick. Before Charlie can ask another of his uncomfortable questions, he asks, “Did you have any plans?”

“Oh man, I thought you’d never ask! There’s this cemetery on South Ninth Street, Duncan, you know that guy from the bridge? Well, Duncan says that it’s haunted… I was thinking of checking it out, you know, hunting for ghouls…”

Mac decides to indulge him and go hunt for ghouls instead of trying to avoid answering any more of Charlie’s questions. They stay out all night, huffing glue in the gloom among headstones. Charlie chases shadows, insisting that everything that flickers in the darkness is a lost soul. Not even the Charlie drugs can make Mac see what he sees between the tombs.

“Charlie, that’s no ghoul. That’s a damn rat. This whole city is lousy with rats.” This is stupid. Why did he ever agree to this?

“Dude, I _know_ rats. That was way too fast to be a rat!”

In response, Mac brings the gluebag to his nose and inhales deeply--it’s the only way to deal with Charlie’s madness, you have to get a little mad yourself. Of course, they don’t manage to catch anything. Charlie’s enthusiasm is not dampened by their failure, however--if anything, it’s just the opposite. He’s already making plans to break into the abandoned penitentiary in Fairmont, on the westside of town. “Think of all the lost souls in there! We’d have to catch something there, dude!”

Sometimes the only way to deal with Charlie is to indulge him, so Mac makes a noncommittal sound. “Sure bro, let me know.” They pound fists and head their separate ways.

 

 

When he walks into the apartment shortly after dawn, Dennis is sitting on the couch, staring at the door.

“Where the fuck were you? I was calling all night!” He lunges at the door, positively shaking with anger.

“Calm down, Dennis--”

But before he can finish speaking, Dennis shoves him against the wall. His fury has given him an inhuman strength, and Mac knocks into the bookcase, sending an avalanche of books to the floor.

“What the fuck, Dennis?” Mac does a quick rundown of his injuries. Nothing's broken (everything's broken), but he’s going to be bruised tomorrow for sure.

Dennis is still seething. “Where were you?” The words escape him in a hiss.

“Dude, I was out with Charlie. We went to that cemetery he’s been talking about--”

“Don’t lie to me!” He swears that the pictures on the wall tremble, Dennis is yelling so loud.

“I’m not lying! Damn it, man, you can ask Charlie--he wanted to hunt for ghouls…” Mac protests.

“If you were just hunting for _ghouls_ , why didn’t you answer any of my calls?” Dennis sneers.

“Shit man, I must have left my phone at the bar… Look!” Mac stands up, turns his pockets inside out. “I don’t even have my phone. How am I supposed to answer your stupid texts if I don't even have my fucking phone?”

Dennis lunges at him, Mac puts up his forearms to block his fists. Finally, Dennis leaves himself open, and Mac knocks him to the ground.

“You’re out of your mind, Dennis. You’re acting fucking crazy.” Mac spits the words out. They sound awful, mean and horrible, and he doesn't even care.

“ _You make me crazy,_ ” Dennis snarls.

Mac sees red. His fists fly before he knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t realize he’s thrown a punch until he hears the sickening crack, feels the impact of fists on bone.

Dennis is stunned into silence. The awful sneer he’d been wearing on his lips since Mac walked in the door withers, and he holds his hands up to his face. For a terrible second, Mac thinks he might cry. “You… you _hit_ me.”

He’s horrified. He rushes toward Dennis, tutting softly. “Holy shit, Dennis, I’m so sorry…”

“You _hit_ me,” Dennis repeats in that tiny, broken voice. A bruise blooms on his jaw and his eyes are impossibly bright. Mac doesn’t know what to do, so he does the only thing he can think of: he puts his arms around Dennis, the apologies rushing out of his mouth, _I’m sorry, so sorry dude, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I didn’t mean it,_ and Dennis lets him gather him into his arms. It’s too late, they’re too tired, nothing makes sense. Mac rains soft kisses over Dennis’s face, and Dennis allows this, lets Mac murmur nonsense syllables against his broken skin. The sun spills into the living room, it’s too bright, too cruel the way that it brings all their bruises into high relief.

 

When they show up at the bar that afternoon, Dee whistles as she sees Dennis’s busted face. “Jesus, what happened to you?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Dennis says, at the exact moment Mac says, “He passed out and fell off the sofa.” Dee’s eyes flicker between them, but they say nothing more, just crack open beers and go about the day.

After that night, he makes sure to keep his phone on him at all times. When Dennis texts, he makes sure to answer right away, anxious to avoid another confrontation like the morning he’d punched Dennis in the face. He’d rather die than see Dennis like that again, holding them both in hostage to his anger.

 

 

Of course, it’s Dee who notices the change in their relationship before anyone else. It’s movie night and Dennis always hogs the popcorn and makes Mac get up to make more, and he never bothers to pause the video and Mac’s sick of it; it threatens to become a fight but they decide they just need a bigger bowl. Since they don’t have one in the apartment, they decide to steal one from Dee. “It’s funny,” she fumes as they walk away with the largest bowl she owns, “because I feel like you guys are two codependent losers who are so wrapped up in each other that it’s hard for you to see how pathetic your lives are.” Dee’s eyes flit from Mac to Dennis as they stand awkwardly in her hallway. “It’s like you’re an old married couple. When’s the last time you went more than an hour without seeing each other?”

“Every day, like all the time!” Mac protests.

“Without checking in?” Dee raises an eyebrow. Mac and Dennis try to defend themselves, _we always check in, he likes it when I check in, that’s what friends do, they check in._

“Enjoy that movie, boners.” The door shuts in their faces.

The vig is up. They’re caught. Mac tries to pretend Dee doesn’t know what she’s talking about-- _that bitch has no friends, what does she know about real friendship?--_ while Dennis nods. But even though Dee’s a bird with no friends, Mac can tell Dennis is affected by his sister’s comments. He brings home the wrong movie from the video store. He actually _admits_ he was too busy talking to the damned video store clerk to bother answering Mac’s texts.

“What is your problem, bro?” Mac asks. He’d only bothered to check in because Dennis was such a little bitch. Not like he gives a damn what Dennis does with his life, if he talks to video store bitches and rents movies that aren’t _Predator._

“I have been thinking about a lot about what Dee said,” Dennis says, sighing--“and maybe we _are_ spending too much time together.”

“Well, what are you saying?” Mac’s holding the popcorn.

“I’m saying I think we’re in a little bit of a rut, and I’m not…” he pauses to search for the word, “flourishing,” he finishes.

“Well, far be it from me to keep to flower of _you_ from flourishing.” Mac throws the whole bowl of popcorn at him. _Bitch. You think I give a goddamn what you do?_ (It’s a goddamn lie, he does, oh God; he cares, he does, so goddamn much.)

In that moment, the doorbells rings: it’s the cops, ready to take the missing person’s report he’d filed an hour ago. Mac packs his things and heads to Charlie’s, his shame wafting out of every pore.

 

 

Not even Charlie's house is a safe haven, Mac knows as soon as he hears the phone ring. “Is that Dennis?”

Charlie shoves a fistful of Cheetos into his mouth. “I don’t know who it is! I haven’t answered the phone.” He clicks the phone on, stares at Mac with a withering gaze. “Unbelievable. I’m just gonna answer the phone.”

Mac waves his fists in a threat. Charlie ignores him.

“Hey, buddy, how you doing?” The volume in the phone is all the way up, Mac can hear the echo of Dennis’s words in the room.

“Mac is being annoying as shit!” Charlie breathes into the receiver.

“Mac’s being annoying, that’s a big surprise. Is he bossing you around a whole bunch?” (Mac can just imagine the smirk on his face. _Bitch._

“Dude, he’s totally bossing me around!” _Fuck you, Charlie. This is for your own good, goddamn it._

“Typical. That’s what he does. That’s what he does. Did he… _mention_ me?” _Yeah, bitch. I know why you’re calling,_  Mac thinks. Dennis likes to think he has them all wrapped around his fingers.

“What is this dude? Did you just call me to talk about Mac? Because I don’t want to talk about Mac with you!” Charlie spits Cheeto crumbs into the receiver.

“Is he talking about me?” _Yeah, baby bitch. You miss me, you only called to check in on me._

Charlie rolls his eyes. "Yo, Mac--"

“No no no, tell him I’m not talking about him!” Dennis exclaims. (Mac could slap him, would do exactly that if he were here).

“I’m not telling him shit, dude! I’m going to hang up the phone on you.” Charlie means it.

“No no, Charlie, don’t do that! I didn’t call to talk about Mac. I could care less about that guy. I called to talk about you. Do you want to come over to Dee’s apartment? We’re having a movie night.” (Movie night with _Dee,_ the original bird girl? It's supposed to be _their_ night, goddamn it, he is going to beat Dennis senseless for this.)

Mac can't take anymore, he lunges at the phone. “Charlie, hang up now!”

“Oh my God dude. What is your problem? Are you _jealous_ that Dennis wants to talk to me and not you?” Charlie rolls his eyes and speaks into the receiver. “I’ll be right over.”

“Goddamn it, Charlie,” Mac mutters. But doesn't change anything. Charlie hangs up the phone and leaves him alone with Frank, whose botched toe is currently bleeding through the sock he’d been using to plug his wounds, and there’s fresh blood all over the couch. _Goddamn it._ Frank has more blood than anyone has any right to have. And of course Mac’s the only one here who cares if the man bleeds all over where he’s supposed to sleep. Of course no one appreciates the order he tries to impose on the endless chaos of their lives. Of course they don't.

 

 

Charlie’s at Dee’s, with Dennis, and Frank has fucked off somewhere, probably off committing acts of depravity with the bridge people. Mac doesn’t know what he and Charlie see in those junkies, unless it’s drugs (it’s probably the drugs). He’s restless, now that there’s nothing else to do: he’d cleaned up all the trash, put plastic covers on the couch. It’s not _clean,_ exactly, but Mac’s not sure that anything short of a fire has the potential to purify Charlie’s apartment.

Just then, his phone chimes. It’s Dee, and he almost doesn’t bother to actually _read_ her text, because goddamn it, he is no so lonely he’d debase himself by hanging out with a bird person. But his boredom gets the better of him, and he opens the text: _Hey boner. I know you don’t have any plans later so come to Guigino’s at 7pm. I’m going a date and he has a hot sister!_

He almost texts back, _fuck off Dee,_ but another text comes: _She’s got gigantic breasts! I think they’re at least a FF._ Well, it’s not like he has anything better to do tonight, and he’s not sure he’s even ever seen a pair of FF’s in real life. Might be worth hanging out with Dee for a few hours for that reason alone.

 

 

Of course, when he shows up at Guigino's, there’s no big-breasted lady waiting for him. He’s early, anyway, so he orders a drink--he’s hardly had anything to drink today, just a few beers, and he doesn’t want to have the shakes when she arrives.

A few minutes later, Dee arrives, with Dennis in tow. She shoves him down into the seat directly across from Mac, barking _sit_ like she’s dealing with a particularly disobedient dog.

“What the hell, Dee? Where’s your date?” Mac sulks. “You never said anything about this being a _triple_ date…” Mac and Dennis glower at each other from across the table.

“What the fuck are you doing here anyway?” Mac mutters.

Dennis keeps his cool, folds his cloth napkin into his lap. “What do you mean, what am _I_ doing here? I’m here to meet a woman with gigantic breasts.” Dee’s tricked them, of course she'd tricked them--she's horrible, Mac would punch her in the face right here, _right_ now, but Dee fights dirty, like an enraged ostrich. She’d peck out his eyes right there in front of everyone in the restaurant, no one wants to see that when they’re trying to eat their fancy dinners, so Mac settles for a glare.

“Yes, geniuses, I set you up,” Dee interrupts. “Now can you please make up, because you’re driving everyone crazy.” At least if they’re glaring at her, they can’t glare at each other. “Look, I’m sorry I called you codependent, okay?” No response. Dee grimaces--she’s going to have say something she doesn’t mean just to get through to them. “OK, look. You two have a beautiful friendship and It’s perfectly natural for two grown men to need each other this badly.” Finally, they look each other in the eye. “So, make out, please.”

Instead of kissing, they throw their water in each other’s faces.

“OK, alright, OK. Oh my God! All right! I tried!” Dee holds her hands out, palms up in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t care anymore. Guess what? Neither one of you are ever going into my apartment again. So make up, don’t make up, kill each other, I don’t care. I need to go get a bird.” She storms off in a huff. Goddamn it, where is she supposed to find a bird at this hour?

Dennis stares at Mac from across the table. “She looks like a bird,” he says under his breath.

Mac can’t help himself. He chuckles. “She does, doesn’t she?”

Dennis smiles. He has the good sense to ask what Mac has been up to.  “How was Charlie’s?”

“The way they live, bro, it’s like….” He cringes--the expression on his face says everything, and they laugh. Everything's the way it's supposed to be.

At that moment, the waiter interrupts. “Well, if you’re done here, I think it’s about time to close your tab.”

“What are you talking about?” Dennis asks. “We didn’t order anything.”

Mac grins sheepishly. “I was nervous about the big-breasted lady. So I had a couple of rum and cokes…”

“You had _six_ rum and cokes. In less that fifteen minutes.” the waiter admonishes.

“Well, I wouldn’t have needed six of them if they weren’t all _mixer,”_ Mac explains. That will teach that bitch waiter to judge his alcohol intake. “And I was also assuming the big-breasted lady was going to pay for this, so….”

“I’ve got cash, bro. I can get you out of this jam.” Dennis smiles and reaches for the bill. And just like that, they’re back to normal.

 

 

"Well, that was the most awful day of my life,” Dennis says melodramatically. They’re back home, together again, finally. He falls back onto the sofa bonelessly, the ice in his rum and coke clinking against the glass.

"Let's never break up again."

"No!" Dennis exclaims. "Never."

They sit on the couch like that, close enough to touch, on the edge of an embrace.

He's stuck between the words _please_ and _don't_ and both come out of his mouth at the same time. Dennis blows a kiss against his cheek. "No. Not this." Mac draws in his breath and it is as sharp as a knife in the chest. "Anything but this."

"Just don't leave," Dennis says, and they sit together, hugging-but-not-hugging. Mac wants but he doesn't want. All he can do is lie still and wait for morning to arrive.

They fall asleep like that, each wrapped up in the comfort of the other. Mac takes down the crucifix in the living room the next morning, making a deal with God as he does so-- _there are so many things I can confess, but please don't make me confess this._

Mac still goes to church the next day. He doesn't know why he goes--why does anyone start doing anything? Best not to think about that. You start thinking like that and you may as well go do heroin and live with the bridge people, and where was the line, really?

The old drunk priest says to be vigilant against the Devil, that it's easier to keep the corruption out of your soul than it is to exorcise it. You let the corruption get too deep, and you have to cut the leg off to keep your whole body from going bad.

It's those kind of sermons that keeps him coming back, moments where it's like God is talking directly to him. Mac knows if Dennis gets any further under his skin he won't be able to cut him off. He'd bleed to death if he tried.


	10. when i'm fucked up that's the real me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I only call you when it's half-past five  
> The only time that I'll be by your side  
> I only love it when you touch me  
> Now feel me
> 
> When I'm fucked up, that's the real me  
> When I'm fucked up, that's the real me, babe"  
> \--The Weeknd, The Hills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter supposes that dennis and mac carry on whatever relationship started in the last chapter.
> 
> references season six, "mac fights gay marriage". some dialogue from "dennis gets divorced". 
> 
> breathplay, spanking, rough sex, bridge people, abusive behavior. you're an adult, you know what you're getting into.

As this thing between them grows, Dennis becomes more casual with his touch, steals caresses whenever he’s sure no one’s watching, sometimes even when they might be. At the coffee shop, over breakfast, he traps Mac’s feet between his own, under the table. He puts a proprietary arm over Mac’s shoulders as they read the sports page together over the bar, punctuates the points of his various plots with a soft punch to Mac's pectorals.

Mac’s not used to this. This is a new type of touch, a whole new lexicon; he doesn't know what any of this _means._ He understands the meaning of fists, knows the nuances of things like slap, and punch, and grab; hell, he knows how to interpret gestures like lick and clutch and thrust. But he’s got no frame of reference for these tentative touches. He gives himself over to Dennis for guidance. Mac skips church most Sundays and all of the days in between.

They’re careful around the gang at least, careful not to let them see too much. It's better, he thinks, that the the gang doesn't know--they'd find a way to destroy it just like they destroy everything else. Mac likes this, having something he can keep for himself, something that doesn’t have to be split five ways just so no one claws it into pieces and leaves it useless out of spite. It's comforting.

 

 

Charlie invites the gang to a rave, a fundraiser of sorts for one of his bridge buddies, Duncan; they’re trying to save his feet from some dirty needle disease. Mac doesn't want to go--the bridge people make him uncomfortable, anxious, they remind him of the kind of dark things that he prefers to hide from, but Dennis pouts until he acquiesces.

And that's how Mac ends up in the grubby club, lights flashing, trying to distract the bartender’s attention from the bridge drugs long enough to get another rum and coke. Dennis leans against Mac’s back (he’s close, closer than they ever are in public, and it's dangerous but also feels good so he won't fight it), flagging the bartender for a refill. As he tips his glass with one hand, the other creeps up the inside of Mac’s thigh.

“Dennis. Not here.” Mac talks out of the side of his mouth. He won't turn to face him.

Either Dennis doesn't hear, or he doesn't care. The fingers on Mac’s thigh grow more insistent. Dennis tilts his head to nibble on Mac’s neck. Adrenaline courses in his veins and the kiss feels like an attack and he’s certain the whole world is watching.

Mac pivots on his feet and tosses Dennis off his back. Something flashes across his eyes--hurt? disappointment? Mac can’t tell, it doesn’t last long enough to know for sure--then Dennis reaches for him. Mac braces himself, he’s prepared to be slapped, he probably deserves it. But his hand reaches for Mac’s in another one of his infuriating little _touches_ , and he can’t take it, he pulls his hand away.

Dennis ignores him the rest of the night.

 

 

“Hey-yo, looks like Dennis is gonna score tonight!” Dee’s drunker than usual. Her eyes are half-lidded and her head looks heavy on her neck. Mac’s gaze follows her pointing finger.

Dennis is chatting up a woman by the bar, one of those willowy young blondes he loves so much, the kind of woman whose legs are endless, whose cheekbones cut like knives. She looks like she’s walked right off the pages of a magazine.

He’s got his hand on her shoulder, leans in close to listen to her speak; he chuckles at all the right moments. The blonde is obviously charmed by him; she drags Dennis onto the dancefloor with a devilish wiggle of her hips.

And that’s when Mac looks away. He knows the look in Dennis’s eyes; he knows how this will end. He doesn’t want to watch.

In the bar bathroom, he avoids his reflection in the mirror; he knows too well what it will reveal to him, the greasy hair and stubble, cheeks pockmarked by a particularly virulent case of teenage acne, the wrinkles and the birthmarks and the broken capillaries. He’d never particularly pursued physical perfection and the ravages of time and the drink are writing themselves into the skin of his face.

Every year, Mac sees a little more of Luther written there and he doesn't want a reminder of all the ways his father failed him, so he splashes water over his face, runs his hands back over his hair. It doesn’t undo the damage done. He’ll never pass for 25 again; hell, he would only ever pass for 35 if the years had been especially cruel. He can’t blame the gang for ruining his youthful good looks like they ruin everything: he’s done it all to himself.

Back on the dancefloor, his friends’ faces disappear in the crowd. There’s flashing lights and thumping bass and Mac’s skin feels too small and his head feels too tight. He orders a whiskey on the rocks to calm his nerves and when that works, he orders another. The shots come in quick succession. When the room starts spinning, Mac knows he’s lost everything familiar in the swirling crowd, knows he’s lost Dennis too, and doesn't have it in him left to care.

 

 

He walks home alone; when he arrives home he’s sobered up enough that the world has stopped spinning. But he’s exhausted, all he wants is sleep, so he heads toward bed, only barely noticing that Dennis’s bedroom door is shut. He’s drunk, stupid drunk, not drunk enough; he pushes the door open in defeat.

Except Dennis isn’t alone. He’s fucking the blonde from the bar, the model type, fucking her doggy-style on the bed they’ve been sharing for months.

“Mac! What the fuck!” Dennis’s voice is tinged with the requisite surprise, but his grin gives him away. He’d planned this. He’d meant for Mac to see him like this, balls-deep in an impossibly beautiful woman, with whom Mac could never hope to compete.

The blonde shrieks, dives into the blankets in an desperate attempt to preserve her decency. _Shut up bitch. I don't care about your dumb boobs anyway._ Mac turns and runs and slams the door shut behind him, offering “I’m drunk, OK, I’m sorry! I’m drunk!” as his only excuse. (He’s not that drunk. He’d known exactly which door it was he’d meant to open.)

He refuses to lie cold and awake in his own neglected bed, from which he’d hear every moan and thrust on the other side of the flimsy wall. It’s been so long since he’s slept there that there are probably dust bunnies in the sheets.

So Mac stands in the kitchen, hands tied up in useless fists. The way he feels is dangerous, like he could detonate a bomb or start a fire with nothing more than his fists and his fury. He wants to destroy something--really destroy something, blow up a building, start a fire, to do something more destructive and obvious than smashing bottles and throwing rocks at trains. That stupid kid shit can’t come close to calming the anger that’s coiled up inside him like an asp, waiting to strike.

Because he can't stay there and he can't go to his room and he can't escape the stillness in the apartment and the shuddering in his heart, Mac climbs out onto the fire escape, up to the roof. He’s got a bottle of grain alcohol shoved into his back pocket. It won't save his soul and although God is closer here He’s still too far away to touch and Mac needs something to hold onto before he drifts away completely but there's nothing within reach. So he cracks open the bottle and drinks and drinks and drinks until his head spins and then he drinks some more.

He doesn’t bother mixing the Everclear with anything. It tastes awful but that’s the whole point. If love is sweet, he wants to gorge on something bitter. If Dennis is honey, well then, he’s vinegar.

 

 

He takes his time climbing down the fire escape, hungover, hurting. Someone’s closed the window, and the panes don't move when Mac tries to push them. _Goddamn it_. Dennis has locked him out, the little bitch.

Mac bangs on the window because he doesn’t know what else to do. There’s no answer from behind the glass for several minutes. He hopes none of the neighbors look out their windows, they’d call the cops for sure--he smells like grain alcohol and his clothes are smeared with what he’s pretty sure is bird shit. Just as he’s about to thrust his steel-toed boots through the window, Dennis’s face peeks from behind the curtain. He makes a big show of undoing the latch, opening the window. Dennis takes a step back, and motions for Mac to come in.

As Mac leans down to club through the window, Dennis yanks him through the window by his shoulders and doesn’t let go when Mac tries to shrug him off. It doesn’t matter which way he turns, Dennis walks in front of him, blocking any escape and finally Mac feints, slips past Dennis, stepping toward his bedroom. Before he can turn the knob, Dennis launches his weight at him, pressing Mac against his bedroom door.

“Get your hands off me,” Mac hisses. Dennis doesn’t listen. If anything, he tightens his grip on Mac’s shoulders.

“Listen--”

“I don’t want to hear it, I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care, dude, oh my God, I don’t care who you bang.” Maybe if he says it often enough, it will come true.

_“Liar.”_ Dennis spits the word out and Mac can taste the hatred on his breath.

Mac’s not going to play this game. He can't ever keep up with the rules anyway--Dennis changes them all around to suit himself. Mac can scream or sob or accuse or everything all at once, but it won't change the way the game ends, with Dennis as the victor, ever the victor. In the twenty years Mac has known him, he's never seen him lose.

So he breaks the rules. Lies harder. Tells Dennis, _you can bang whoever you want._ Tells him to _go bang a goat, for all I care_ . Tells him, _your asshole stinks and your balls are strange._ The words don't have to be true. They only have to hurt. And they do hurt, they _do_ ; they slap Dennis right in the ego and he surrenders, he sets Mac free, he lets him leave.

It was stupid, Mac supposes, to have expected Dennis would stop banging women in the first place. Stupid to believe that maybe he could be enough. But there's a black hole inside Dennis, a bottomless pit where love goes to die: Mac can throw all his affections in and never hear them hit the bottom. He can stick his whole arm down inside and not reach far enough to take them back.

If their friends notice something different about them, something missing between them, they don’t say anything.

Dennis matters. Mac is energy. Dennis is a forest fire. Mac is kindling at the ready.

 

 

Shortly after the _thing_ he and Dennis had had going self-destructs, Mac runs into Carmen at the gym. She’s had her surgery, is married to some chubby black guy. It’s a slap in the face. _You told me you’d call me_. She didn't. He forgives her. He’d learned long ago how easily promises can break.

Mac leaves the gym in a huff. For the rest of the day, he’s so focused on protecting sanctity of marriage from the homosexual agenda he doesn’t even notice Dennis has gotten a marriage of his own. He finds out soon enough, though, when Dennis corners him in the living room and asks, “Hey, no congratulations?”

“Oh my God, Dennis, what are you talking about?” Mac mutters.

Dennis draws himself up tall. “I got married today!”

He’s stunned. _Dennis, married?_ He can’t think of anyone less the marrying type, especially considering how much the man gets off on fucking married women. “Yeah, right, bro. Good joke, but I don't have the energy for one of your stupid pranks right now.” He pushes past him toward his bedroom. Goddamn it, he just wants to jerk off and go to sleep and be done with this whole mess of a day.

Dennis blocks him. “Dude, I'm not kidding! I'm a married man!”

“Haha, very funny. Look, I'm tired as fuck right now. Can’t you just like, teabag me while I sleep or something? That’s still fun, right?”

“No, you idiot! I will not teabag you while you sleep! I don't want to put my balls in your mouth!” Dennis yells. _At least,_ Mac thinks, _you haven’t for a long time_. “I’m married, bitch!” He holds his hand out to Mac, and the gold band glimmers on his finger.

Mac stops in his tracks, Mac’s breath stops in his chest. Jesus Christ. Dennis had been serious about this whole marriage thing.

“Anyway, you remember Maureen? Maureen Ponderosa?”

“The one with the dead tooth?”

“Jesus Christ, Mac, my wife does not have a dead tooth! She is a perfect physical specimen, just like me.”

“She does so have a dead tooth.” It’s barely more than a whisper. He hates the way his voice sounds, so small and hurt between them.

“Anyway. This crazy, but I’m having feelings again. Like some kind of fourteen year old! This is crazy, but you remember feelings?” Dennis asks.

“Every day, dude. I have feelings every single day of my life.” Mac cocks his head, looks at Dennis sidelong. “Are you saying you don’t have feelings?”

When Dennis protests, insists that he’s simply built a shell around himself and he needs someone to crack it open, Mac draws his fingers into fists, thinks _I could make you feel something if you’d give me the chance._ Before he has a chance to force the words out from where they’re stuck under his Adam’s apple, Dennis unceremoniously shoves him out into the hallway, closing the door in his face. Mac raises his fists to the door and pounds on it, but Dennis and that dead-tooth bitch Maureen Ponderosa don’t answer; they ignore him until he’s too exhausted to keep knocking and his anger has turned itself inside out.

Mac turns from the heavy wooden door and walks down the long hallway with nothing but the shirt on his back and the shoes on his feet. He makes his way to the bar, where he’ll spend an uncomfortable night trying to squeeze himself into a booth to sleep before giving up and stretching out on the pool table, cursing Dennis to damnation.

 

 

Not that it matters. He doesn’t sleep until the dawn begins to creep into the gloomy interior of the bar anyway.

“Dude.” Someone is shaking his shoulders. He groans, closes his eyes tighter. Whoever’s trying to get his attention doesn’t take the hint.”Mac, dude, what the fuck are you doing here?”

It’s got to be Charlie. No one else would be in the bar so early. Mac sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes, runs his hands through his hair, futilely trying contain the cowlicks as he explains: “Dennis and that dead tooth slut kicked me out of the apartment.”

Charlie makes a guttural sound of commiseration. ”Well, shit. That sucks.” He cracks open two beers, passes one to Mac. “You all right?”

“Jesus Christ, Charlie. Of course I’m not all right! I had to sleep in the bar! I had to bathe with your soap!” Mac cringes. Who _knows_ what kind of filth is caked onto Charlie soap?

“Dude, chill.” Charlie sucks on his beer. “I sleep in the bar _all the time,_ bro. It’s not that big a deal.”

Mac glares.

“And like, soap cleans itself? I don't know why you’re making such a big deal about this.”

“Charlie. Dennis got married and kicked me out of the apartment! It is a big deal!”

Charlie scrunches his forehead in concentration. “Oh, I get it. You _miss_ the bastard.”

“ _Charlie._ ” It’s a warning.

“If it’s so awful, being alone, why don’t you just move in with Frank and me, man?” Charlie gulps down the rest of his beer. “We got a pretty sweet thing going… We just got one of those domestic partnership things. It’s pretty awesome, actually.” He slams the empty can on to the bar, crushes it with the palm of his hand.

“Dude, you and Frank got gay married?” He can’t believe this. First Dennis, now Charlie and Frank. If Dee finds someone to marry her before he does, he’s going to give up, start shooting heroin and go live on the banks of the Delaware river with the bridge people and never give a shit about anyone ever again.

Charlie grabs his rat stick from behind the bar. “Not _gay_ married. We’re straight.”

“That’s fraud! You and Frank are shitting on the sacrament of marriage. You’re gonna get smited!”

“Dude, that’s not even a real word.”

“Smite is _so_ a real word!”

“Smite this, asshole.” Charlie gives him the finger as he heads to the basement with his rat stick, ready to start the day’s Charlie work, leaving Mac to bathe himself in the sink and drink himself stupid before before the gang can see him do it.

 

 

Somehow, Dennis ends up convincing Mac to throw him a belated bachelor party, and _pay_ for it, too, despite the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to tell Mac he was getting married in the first place and that he’d kicked Mac out into the streets with nothing more than the clothes on his back. Mac gives in; he gives Dennis everything he wants, always, and that night they get shitfaced at the strip club on whiskey sours.

Outside the strip club, in the loud lurid light, Mac turns away from him without saying anything. He’s not going to congratulate Dennis on his stupid marriage--it’s not even a real marriage, anyway, it’s not like he and Maureen had had a priest or anything so in God’s eyes, it doesn’t even count. Mac won’t count it either.

“Hey, where are you going?” Dennis jogs up behind him, grabs him by the bicep, turns Mac to face him.

“Nowhere,” he says under his breath; Dennis gives him a withering look. “Back to the bar.” Goddamn him. He doesn’t deserve the truth, but Dennis Reynolds gets everything he wants from him anyway, whether he deserves it or not.

“I’m still thirsty,” Dennis says. His hand on Mac’s arm. His lips lurid and purple in the neon lights. “Why don’t we get some whiskey, take shots at the apartment?”

“You’re buying. I spent all my money on your party,” he murmurs. Mac can’t resist free alcohol (it’s not the alcohol he can't resist).

Dennis concedes: _fair enough._ They turn and leave the neon alley behind them and they’re drunk, so drunk that they’re the only thing keeping each other from falling down, from falling apart. Dennis’s long fingers encircle Mac’s thick wrist. It has been a long time since he has felt this kind of touch--it's as comforting as it is unassuming. It doesn't mean more than what it is. It means _everything._

Mac can believe that it's a night like any other (they’ve been going home together for nearly twenty years) and the illusion holds until Maureen Ponderosa wakes from sleep and tells them that the alcohol is making them look stupid.

Well, shit, _this_ is awkward; how are you even supposed to deal with people who don't drink? Mac excuses himself from the whole awful confrontation. “Maybe I should go to my room.” He sidles past Dennis, heading for his bedroom door.

“That is not your room anymore!” Maureen gives him a withering look.

“What the fuck?” Mac looks to Dennis for an explanation.

“Don't freak out dude. She turned it into a craft studio, where she makes terrible sweatshirts out of cats. Or she puts cats in sweatshirts, I don’t know, it’s like _dude,_ what the hell do you even _do_ with your life? Because I have no idea. _”_

“Dennis! I am your wife! Please show me respect in front of your friends!” But Dennis refuses, doubles down on his cruelty. All Maureen can do is shake her head, say. “You’re drunk, Dennis. Too drunk, Dennis. I don’t know--what are you _saying?”_

“DIVORCE! I will divorce you, Maureen!” Dennis punctuates his shout with a deep gulp of whiskey, slamming the glass bottle onto the table.

“You’re drunk. Why don’t we just go to bed--”

“I’m not drunk. I’m more sober than I’ve ever been in my entire life!” Dennis sways and all his words come out in a slur. “OK, I’m a little drunk.” He takes another shot. “I’m totally drunk. But my mind is sober! And my mind is telling me the following: I don’t love you! I never loved you! You’re annoying, and you’re strange!”

Maureen wilts at Dennis’s cruelty. “I don’t know what to say.” She crosses her arms across her chest as though they are armor against his words. Mac tries not to gloat as Maureen stands her ground. “I want you, and your _boy toy_ , out of my apartment, _now!”_

Mac leans back in his chair. “She thinks I’m your boy toy!” Even though he tries not to let it out, there’s the edge of something jubilant in his voice. _Except you’ve got it backward. He’s_ my _boy toy. He’s a power bottom but what would you know about that, you dead tooth bitch?_

“I’m not leaving,” Dennis spits. “This is my apartment.”

Maureen glowers at her husband. Without breaking eye contact, she balls her right hand into a fist, and begins rhythmically thumping herself in the chest. Mac jumps up, grabs Dennis’s shoulder, tries to remove him from the shit they’ve stepped into now, but Dennis is drunk, doesn't recognize the depth of the shit they’re in. He stares uncomprehendingly as Maureen whacks herself with her own fists.“What... What is going on here?”

Mac yanks Dennis to the door. “Dude, she's gonna call the cops! And tell them that that you beat her up!”

He’s mesmerized. He can’t stop watching Maureen beat herself up in the living room.

Mac whispers in his ear. “Dude. Your bench warrants. You don’t want to get involved with the cops.” They’re the magic words. Dennis finally turns away from Maureen, and he and Mac flee the scene, take refuge in the bar, where they’ve found solace so many times before.

 

 

Dennis’s marriage to Maureen dissolves like a bad dream. Sure, he’s got alimony up the ass, but he invites Mac to come home and start paying rent again. Mac is tired of sleeping in the bar at night. He comes back (he always comes back to Dennis) and to celebrate, they mix a pitcher of rum and coke, curl up on Dennis’s bed to watch Predator together. Nothing's changed, but Mac won't let Dennis forget how he’s suffered from his selfishness: “I had to sleep on the pool table! For an entire week! With at least ten cats!” Mac glares. “Did you know we have a cat problem? Because we _do._ ”

“I was wondering what happened to the rat problem.” Dennis chuckles, and Mac feels his anger crest.

“You think that’s funny, bitch?”

Dennis’s eyes twinkle. Mac grabs for him, catches him off guard, knocks him off his feet.

Mac positions Dennis over his lap, pushes his jeans and briefs down to expose the creamy skin of his ass (it's soft and juicy just like he remembers). He draws his arm back, relaxes his wrist, and strikes. When his palm makes contact with Dennis’s ass, the room fills with a resounding crack. “You feel anything now?”

To his credit, Dennis doesn’t flinch. “No. I don’t feel anything.” He bites his lip and struggles, but Mac forces him back down, ass-up, across his lap.

“Not yet, bitch. I’m not done with you.” He slaps him again. Dennis keens and the sound feeds Mac’s hunger. He’s unhinged. He hits Dennis harder this time, the sound of flesh against flesh echoing around them in the room. He doesn’t stop until Dennis begs for mercy-- _Mac, it hurts, Mac please, no more, Mac--_ and Mac pushes him off of his lap and onto all fours.

Dennis’s ass is red and hot under Mac’s hand. He kisses one of the cheeks, feels the skin burn against his lips. He reaches into the drawer for the lube, it's still there, right where he remembers it, and coats his fingers generously, blind with lust. He shoves two fingers into Dennis’s hot hole, buries them to the hilt without bothering to stretch him. When Dennis whines in protest, Mac covers his nose and mouth with his free hand. Dennis tries to bite his hand, and when Mac feels the sharp edges of his teeth sink against his skin, he removes his fingers with a _pop_ that echoes around them, then replaces his fingers with his dick.

He hasn’t stretched Dennis enough--his asshole is impossibly tight; Mac thrusts shallowly, moves his hips in circles until the flesh yields to his dick. When Dennis has finally relaxed enough, Mac pushes in further, feeling the burning flesh give way to his insistent cock. Dennis makes a sound like asphyxiation when he presses all the way inside him, and Mac reaches for his throat with just enough pressure to feel Dennis’s adam’s apple when he swallows. He doesn’t squeeze, not yet, instead pulling his hips back until just the head of his cock remains inside his partner. For an excruciating moment, he lingers like this, until Dennis tries to impale himself on his dick, and Mac squeezes his throat in warning.

Dennis gets the hint, and stops struggling, giving himself over to Mac completely. They fuck slowly, excruciatingly. Mac teases them both until they can’t take anymore, until Dennis comes with a scream and Mac follows him with a grunt (he would follow Dennis anywhere). He doesn’t bother to pull out before collapsing bonelessly onto Dennis’s back. Their combined weight tumbles down into the mattress, and Mac drifts into sleep to the aftershocks, to Dennis’s ass contracting around his softening dick.

 

Mac awakens to the sound of the shower running. He doesn’t bother to grab a towel or his robe, just walks naked across the apartment to open the door to the bathroom. A cloud of steam rolls out of the bathroom, and he back the curtain to expose Dennis, eyes closed, luxuriating beneath the hot water.

When he jumps into the shower to join Dennis, he notices the bruises in the shape of fingers on his ass. If Dennis winces when he touches them, he won’t let himself feel bad. _Try to tell yourself you don’t have feelings when you feel my dick all day long_ , Mac thinks. If Dennis can’t get comfortable, well, that’s just how Mac feels all the time--it feels good to make Dennis ache like he aches.

If the gang notices Dennis wince every time he sits down, no one says anything; it’s their dirty secret. He knows it won’t be long until Dennis shows up at his bedroom door again, begging for Mac to make him feel something. Maybe Mac’s not a kind man, maybe he can’t make Dennis feel safe or comforted or loved, but he _can_ make him hurt. A better man might not take Dennis up on his offer, but Mac is who he is, he can't change now. And if he has to feel like he’s drowning, well damn it, he is taking Dennis down too.


	11. my body is a cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My body is a cage  
> We take what we're given  
> Just because you've forgotten  
> That don't mean you're forgiven
> 
> I'm living in an age  
> That screams my name at night  
> But when I get to the doorway  
> There's no one in sight
> 
> I'm living in an age  
> That laughs when I'm dancing  
> With the one I love  
> But my mind holds the key"  
> \--Arcade Fire, "My Body is a Cage" (Peter Gabriel cover)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season 7. references "the high school reunion" episodes but only vaguely. 
> 
> warnings for recreational drug use and dubious consent. camden, nj, is a terrible place and a major drug city on the east coast. Kensington is a philly 'hood with a big open-air drug market.
> 
> "rocket surgeon" is a Rickyism (trailer park boys). yeah, i love that show too.

When Mac gets fat, Dennis’s affections trickle down to nothing so slowly he doesn't realize it until they stop completely. He stops coming to Mac’s room at night, stops coming on to him on the couch. He begins making snide remarks about Mac’s weight. When Mac protests _I'm not getting fat, I’m just cultivating mass,_ Dennis admonishes him to _stop cultivating and start harvesting._ He hates the way his eyes always give his hurt away--they shine wet and dark and wide like a kicked dog, and Dennis turns from him, disgusted.

The empty liquor bottles pile up in the recycling and no one mentions that they’re drinking more (if anything, they're all drinking more, so it’s better not to talk about it; if they start talking about it, eventually they’re going to have to do something about it). Dee fakes her imaginary baby’s death. Frank hosts a beauty pageant and it goes spectacularly wrong when he becomes so obsessed with proving he’s not a kid diddler, that kid diddlers are not welcome, that an actual kid diddler shows up.

The brownouts become more frequent, and Mac spends most of the time right on the edge of blacking out completely. His increased mass has given him the ability to ingest unholy amounts of liquor, which is one unexpected benefit he supposes. When they place their weekly orders, it’s obvious that they’re drinking as much as their customers. Frank admits he runs the bar at a loss for tax reasons, as if that justifies getting piss-ass drunk on a near daily basis. They're no longer pretending Paddy’s is a legitimate business, and their work ethic, never especially high in the first place, dwindles down to nothing.

 

Mac stands underneath the bridge with Charlie, doesn't know how he keeps getting himself into shit like this. He's in the wrong half of his thirties, still hanging out under the bridge like a teenager. Well. At least he’s got Charlie to keep him company.

Charlie's huffing from a big red tank, eyes rolled back in his head, ecstatic. He passes Mac the tank, and Mac takes a deep breath before the chemicals he’s huffed knock him on his ass and the world goes black. _Dear God_. Charlie has graduated to industrial strength inhalants.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Mac coughs when he can finally see again.

“Oh,” Charlie snaps out of his high. “Just some, you know, boat fuel.”

“Jesus Charlie,” Mac says, “How are you even still _alive_?”

Charlie sucks on the fuel tank until his eyes bulge, then lets it all out in a coughing fit. “I take a lot of vitamins, dude. And probably also the cat food.” He passes the boat fuel to Mac, who declines, so he sucks down another hit in quick succession, eyes rolling back in his head.

“You need to stop hanging out with the bridge people. They are encouraging you to become ever more depraved,” Mac mutters. “Someday, dude, this shit is going to make you _literally_ retarded,” he says, kicking a crumpled beer can. It hits the water with a satisfying _splash._

“No, you see, I have a precise system for inhalants…”

“I’m no rocket surgeon myself, but I think you are absolutely becoming dumber.” Mac kicks another can into the river. There’s a dark, fetid smell in the air; the hum of traffic is occasionally broken by a braying _honk._  Charlie wobbles when he gets to his feet, but he manages to stand upright and join Mac in kicking the bridge detritus into the Delaware river.

Over the river, the dim glow of Camden, New Jersey stares back at them. He remembers when he was young, maybe six years old, his dad had started taking him on trips to Camden. It had taken him years to string together the flashes of memory into a coherent narrative: the peephole sliding open to reveal paranoid pinned pupils, the dark mean rooms that had always had walking zombies lurking in the shadows, the thick chemical smell wafting everywhere.

His father had always told him to stay quiet, not to talk to anyone. Most of all, he had taught Mac to run when the heat was on--Luther was a successful criminal because never blinked and was too fast to get caught. Always one scheme and two blocks ahead of his pursuers.

The first time they’d had to run (Luther had been short with money, Mac remembers the flash of the gun and the fear in his mouth bitter and metallic like gunpowder) was the first time Mac had ever really _prayed._ Sure, he’d gone to church on all the holidays, but he’d never asked God for anything the way he’d asked to be saved that day.

God had saved him that day--Mac had felt God’s awesome power, had felt His hand at his back, pushing him to run ever faster until they’d made it to the car. Luther had gunned it, the car lurching into gear so quickly it tossed Mac against the dashboard, but God’s great hand picked him up and saved him again. He was sick to his stomach and heaving for breath from running for his life, and before he could buckle himself back into his seat he’d started puking everywhere.

When he was doubled over in the front seat, he father held his hair back. He’d rested his track marked hands on his son’s forehead but didn’t look at him; he’d been driving too fast to take his eyes off the road. It’s one of the only times Mac remembers Luther touching him with something like affection.

 

 

“Mac, yo hey, Mac. _Mac_ \--”

He blinks. He's back under the bridge, back with Charlie and the boat fuel and the broken bottles. Camden’s dirty streets fade into a yellow haze across the Delaware.

“You were zoned out there, man. And you think I’m the one who’s getting stupider--I was calling your name like ten times.” He’s staring, eyes keen and bright, waiting for Mac to say something.

What he says is this: “Charlie, man, you ever been to Camden?”

“No way dude. I never even left Philly til that time we went to the shore. And to Atlantic City that one time.”

“Since _you_ went to Atlantic City. I’m still mad at you about Chase Utley,” Mac warns.

“Anyway I guess I drove through it. But isn’t is supposed to be really bad, like worse than Kensington, even?”

Mac nods. “I went a couple times. With my dad.”

“Yeah?”

“It… wasn’t good.” He says nothing more. How could he explain?

Charlie tosses a bottle into the river. He misses and the glass shatters with a satisfying crash. It seems like the right thing to do, so Mac smashes one of his own. Together they break bottles underneath the bridge until dawn.

 

 

“Jesus Christ, I forgot what a bunch of assholes everyone was in high school,” Dee says, and the gang agrees. After the disaster of the high school reunion, they’d taken refuge in the bar, where they could all get good and drunk without anyone there to judge.

“A two drink limit. What is the point of a two drink limit? What is the purpose of two drinks?” Dennis rages over his beer.

“There is no point! That shit is useless,” Mac agrees, drinking half his beer in a single gulp.

“Shut up, Ronnie.”

The gang erupts in laughter.

“Suck my soul, Charlie. That’s not my name.” Mac narrows his eyes and sneers but it’s ridiculous on him, completely camp.

“That was your name when I met you,” Dennis snarks.

“I’ve been Mac since the tenth grade and you know it!” Mac yells.

“OK, _Ronnie_ ,” Dee says.

“I will slap your face off of your face if you don’t shut up, bitch!” Mac lunges at her, but he’s too drunk, there are two Dees in his field of vision and he swings at the wrong one. She tosses her whiskey in his face and hoots like owl--”Who’s the bitch now, bitch!”

There’s not much more Mac can do other than take another shot. He’s absolutely wasted when he and Dennis leave the bar, as browned out as a brown out can be without going black. He wakes up for a moment when they arrive at their building, fumbles at his pockets. His pants are too tight and his fingers too fat and he lacks the mind-brain-body coordination to make it work.

“Fuck, dude. You have to get the keys,” he slurs, giving up.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“No dude. I’m too drunk.”

“Too fat, maybe.” But Dennis indulges him. He puts his slim fingers into Mac’s right pocket, but he doesn’t reach for the keys--he reaches for his cock. Drunk as he is, his dick twitches--doesn't get hard, he's too wasted, but it throbs as Dennis massages him.

He’s close, close in a way he hasn't been in months. Dennis draws him into a kiss there against the door, it's an awful kiss--too messy and wet and uncoordinated. It's exhilarating.

If Mac was drunk before, the kiss sends him reeling. He tips backward, and the only thing to catch him are Dennis’s arms. “Let’s get to bed,” Dennis slurs, and he grabs the keys from Mac’s pocket with one lingering squeeze of his cock and leads them inside.

Mac follows him up the stairs like a man walking to his own execution. Sometimes he thinks he’d follow Dennis anywhere, even times like tonight when he’s certain to be lead into damnation.

Times like now, when his eyes shine with bad intentions and a lust that could be for Mac’s body or Mac’s blood. He’s willing to offer both, and tells himself that _God will understand._ After all, He offers His own son up, in body and blood, for the faithful to consume every Mass.

And this isn't really all that different. Mac is being served up on the altar of Dennis Reynolds. Self abasement. Mortification of the flesh. It’s a sin and a penance all unto itself. Dennis manhandles him, pushes him down on his knees, fucks Mac’s throat until tears leak down his cheeks, until his vision goes dark for a moment as he swallows around the dick down his throat. Dennis sees him nod out: his eyes sharpen to a razor’s edge and he plunges his cock into Mac’s mouth, making him choke again.

Even though his thrusts are brutal, he coos to Mac. Tells him, _you suck so sweet._ Says, _I’m gonna come so hard you’ll taste my dick all day._ A minute more, and he does just that, grasping the base of Mac’s skull and filling his mouth with his bitter sour semen.

And Mac chokes on his cum, on his dick, and the blasphemous words _God, Dennis, God Dennis, God_ that never quite make their way past his lips.

Dennis doesn’t bother to touch Mac, doesn’t bother to be tender to him in the aftermath. He just passes out in his bed, still wearing his shirt with his briefs around his ankles. _Selfish prick._ It’s just as well, he’s so drunk he probably can’t feel his dick anyway. He falls asleep, literally falls into it--one minute he’s swooning by the bed and the next he’s awake all at once with only one word in his head-- _water._

 

 

The sheets are the wrong color and the windows are on the wrong walls. That's the first indication he's woken up in the wrong place. The second is the softly breathing body next to him in the bed, and all Mac’s greatest hopes and worst fears are confirmed when he ascertains it’s just Dennis. (It can’t have been anybody else, who’s he trying to fool? Mac doesn’t know why he does this to himself, year after year after year. Anyone else would have given up on him by now. Everyone else _has_ given up on he and Dennis both.) They don’t love each other so much as they survive one another, and that’s a whole other thing Mac doesn’t want to get into, not when he doesn’t know how long this ceasefire is going to last.

Mac puts his fingers up against Dennis’s mouth, telling himself that he’s just checking for his breath out of habit. It’s there (he doesn’t know what he expected), and then he doesn’t know what else to do so he leaves to slam two glasses of water in his unbuttoned suit pants and wifebeater with whiskey coming out of his pores. He’s too hungover to even think of going to church; in fact he’s pretty sure he’s not going to get much further than the shower and his own sheets for the next two days.

 _Forgive me, Father. For I have sinned._ Mac recites the words in his head. _My best friend put his dick in my mouth, and I didn’t try to say no,_ he thinks as he chugs down another glass of water. _From now on, I promise to be good, for all of the times I never could. Amen._ There’s a bitter aftertaste in his mouth and he can’t tell if it’s Dennis’s dick or his own guilt. Figures they would have the same taste.


	12. congratulations on the mess you've made of things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Congratulations on the mess you made of things;  
> On trying to reconstruct the air and all that brings.  
> And oxidation is the compromise you own  
> But this is beginning to feel like the dog wants a bone
> 
> You force your fire then you falsify your deeds  
> Your methods dot the disconnect from all your creeds  
> And fortune strives to fill the vacuum that it feeds  
> But this is beginning to feel like the dog's lost the lead"  
> \--TV on the Radio, DLZ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takes place during season 8. references "the gang solves the trash crisis" and "charlie and dee find love". 
> 
> warnings: hard drugs, offensive words, and full penetration.
> 
> (yeah i'm posting this on easter sunday because i'm a lapsed catholic. come celebrate with me.)

During the garbage strike, Frank devises a scheme to undercut the trash union. The Gang is immediately on board, and for once, one of their plans starts to make money. Just as Frank’s plot is yielding dividends, Mac and Charlie and Dennis decide to abandon his scheme for one of their own cons--selling gas door-to-door.

Mac’s covered in birdshit and garbage juice. It’s ninety degrees outside, humid, and he’s sweating in his stupid suit. He’s delirious in the heat; he’s high on the endorphins. It’s the only explanation he can think of for why he tries to kiss Dennis, in broad brutal daylight, stone-cold sober, in front of Charlie.

“Did he just try to kiss me,” Mac hears Dennis ask as he walks away.

“Uh-huh, a little bit,” Charlie answers.

Mac doesn’t let on that he heard them. Eventually Charlie and Dennis tire of teasing him (what’s the point of fixating on a kiss that never even happened when he ignores them anyway?) and they let the incident go.

At least Charlie does. After that, Dennis starts to look at him with so much hunger Mac is surprised that he doesn’t try to eat him in his sleep. But he wakes up every morning intact, more or less: no signs of struggle, no bite marks, and definitely no suspicious missing chunks of skin or flesh.

 

 

Dee throws herself a birthday party for her 35th birthday, despite Dennis’s protests that it’s _his_ 35th birthday too, and he doesn’t want anyone to _know_ he’s in the latter half of his thirties.

“If you would stop hitting on girls half your age all the time, it wouldn't matter so much,” Dee says. “Anyway, I’m happy to be getting older. I feel like I’m in my prime.”

“No woman is in her prime in her thirties,” Dennis mutters. He pours himself another whiskey soda.

“Plenty of women hit their prime in their thirties!”

“That’s a lie that the feminist religion is filling your head with,” Frank says.

“Goddamn it, Frank, for the last time, feminism is not a _religion!_ ”

The conversation devolves from there into an attack on women’s rights, which only ends when Dee maces the gang and all of their customers in the midst of a rant against the patriarchy.

They humor her in the end, going to the bar she’d chosen without too many protestations. It’s a pretentious and overpriced place that sells only gin drinks for some unholy reason. Every single one of their drinks tastes like medicine, but Mac had come prepared with two flasks, each filled with rum, to get him through the night.

After he pisses, he takes a quick nip of the flask as he stares at his reflection. He can’t deny it, they’re all getting older--Mac’s already got permanent worry lines etched across his forehead, creases around his eyes. He takes another shot, but gulps more liquor than he means to. He coughs as he swallows and in the next moment someone’s saying his name.

“Mac? Is that you?”

He looks over his shoulder. Someone definitely called his name, and it’s coming from the stall behind him. “Hey Mac,” the voice says, and he recognizes it this time.

“Dee? What are you doing in the men’s bathroom?”

Dee unlatches the stall door. “Women’s bathroom was too busy. C’mon.” She ushers him into the stall.

There are three lines drawn in a white powdered substance on the toilet tank. Dee holds a rolled up bill to her nose, inhales deeply, then passes the bill to Mac.

He accepts, leans down and sucks the stuff up. There are random chunks in the powder that scrape his sinuses as he snorts. In a few seconds, the drug descends on him; he’d expected the chatter of coke but this was _different._ A gentle euphoria washes over him instead. “This… this is definitely not cocaine.”

“Of _course_ it’s not cocaine, you idiot.” Dee grabs the rolled up dollar from Mac, snorts the last line in a practiced motion. “I’m a recovering crack addict. Cocaine could be dangerous for me.”

“Well, then, what the hell was that?”

Dee wipes her nose, pockets the bill. “Oh. Oxycontin.”

“Oxy, Dee? That’s not dangerous for you?”

Dee shrugs. “If I knew you were gonna be such a bitch about it, I wouldn’t have shared.”

“Since when do you just have painkillers, like around, on a random Tuesday night?”

“First of all, it’s _not_ a random Tuesday night. It’s my birthday, asshole, I’ll get high if I want to. And second, who are you to judge? You do Charlie drugs.”

There’s a difference, though, between Charlie drugs and Oxycontin. Sure, Mac’s dad had done a fair amount of getting high on his own supply when he’d been dealing meth but it hadn’t been until Luther added heroin to the mix that he’d gotten sloppy enough to get caught.

Mac remembers the morning of the raid; he’d been only sixteen. Old enough to help out a bit with the family business. When the SWAT team had broken down the door, Mac thought that they were going to handcuff him too. But Luther didn’t crack. Not even when the DA’s offered him a bargain.

Luther might have been a criminal, an addict, and an asshole, but he had his own kind of integrity: he hadn’t ratted out any of his suppliers or his clients in exchange for a lighter sentence. As a result, his son had been spared from criminal charges. It’s true, Mac had continued dealing for a few years after that, but just weed and shrooms and ecstasy. He’d seen what hard drugs could do to a person, and he wanted no part of it.

Seeing Dee snort the Oxy had made his heart ache for her. Maybe he calls her a bird all the time, maybe he shits on her dreams a little bit every day, but he’s got his own kind of affection for Dee. She’s one of the gang whether they admit it or not. But there’s nothing he can say about her drug of choice; after all, he’d snorted a fat line of his own, right there in front of her. Mac doesn’t know how to be kind, even though he senses that the moment requires something more than the careless antagonism that infuses their usual interactions.

He tries, though. “Just promise me you won’t end up living in a tent, shooting heroin underneath the bridge. Charlie and Frank have been hanging out with the bridge people all these years, and I think that they are actually _devolving_ , and I don't even believe in evolution.” He sighs. “ And promise me that you’ll always use clean needles. My dad always had all these sores and shit from dirty needles. You don’t want that.”

“Jesus Christ, Mac, for the last time, I am not shooting up with the bridge people!” Dee runs her hands back over her hair, which clings to her scalp in greasy clumps. “Just forget about it,” she mutters as she unlatches the stall door.

There’s an unfortunate man at the urinal, and he startles when she strides out to the sink. “Ugh,” she mutters, “that is one ugly dick.” The man rushes to stuff himself back into his pants and escape Dee’s withering sneer in record time.

She reapplies her lipstick sloppily in the mirror, and it takes her forever--it’s the dope, Dee’s half on the nod all night long, she’s falling asleep into her drinks. Mac doesn’t tell anyone her secret. He can’t do it without implicating himself as well, and he hates Dee for trapping him like this, but he can’t blame her. Given the circumstances, he’d have done the exact same thing.

 

The five of them close out the bar. It’s nearly three in the morning before the gang stumbles outside; Dee’s a complete mess, her head is rolling on her shoulders and it takes her ten seconds to take a single step. Somehow he and Dennis end up with the responsibility of taking her home.

“Goddammit, Dee, how can a bird weigh so much? I thought you all had hollow bones,” Mac grumbles as he and Dennis drag her up the stairs and into her apartment. Dee mumbles incoherently. It’s probably an insult but it’s too garbled for Mac to make any sense out of it, so he moves past it.

They perfunctorily deposit her into her bed where she sinks bonelessly into the mattress. She doesn’t try to undress herself or burrow under the covers. Mac’s ready to turn and go and forget about Dee, but Dennis says _wait,_  so he does. With gentle fingers, Dennis undoes the buckles on Dee’s fancy strappy shoes, pulls the blanket over her, then tucks her hair behind her ears before chastely kissing her forehead. There’s a tenderness to his actions that Mac has never seen in Dennis before: as far as he can tell, the man loves nothing more than to break beautiful things into a thousand jagged pieces. After all, Mac’s seen him do exactly that to dozens of beautiful women through the years, knows how much he gets off on it, too.

That’s what makes this unexpected gesture so confusing. Dennis might have an aristocrat’s long and delicate hands, but they’re not the kinds of hands that compose symphonies or sculpt masterpieces. They’re more like the hands of a serial killer, nimble and cruel and capable of unspeakable acts. They shouldn't be capable of this.

Mac silently watches Dennis put Dee to bed and tries to ignore the fantasy that instantly scrawls itself across his eyelids: Dennis turning that kind of tenderness onto Mac, touching him like it’s an act of worship instead of an act of war.

But Dennis gets up off of his knees, brushes off his jeans. “Let’s get out of here,” he says, and Mac follows him all the way home. In their apartment, they linger for a moment too long in the living room. Dee’s drugs are still firing in his synapses and Mac’s legs and head weigh a thousand pounds each. But when Dennis turns and heads for his room, Mac knows he can’t let him go without him, reaches out, putting a hand on his shoulder. The touch is heavy enough to stop Dennis in his tracks, and Dennis turns and looks at Mac, his eyelids heavy and his brow furrowed.

“Hey, Dennis,” Mac says, squeezing Dennis’s shoulder. Dennis stares at him, and there’s that _look_  in his eyes again, the hunger that threatens to swallow Mac whole. “Happy birthday,” he says, and before he knows what he is doing, he presses his lips into a wet kiss onto Dennis’s forehead.

His mouth slips from Dennis’s forehead down onto his lips and they breathe into each other’s mouths. Dennis’s tongue swipes against Mac’s lips, which part reflexively, and suddenly that tongue is in his mouth, and he can’t fight it, can’t say no, can’t resist.

Dennis kisses him like a starving man--it’s messy and wet and saliva dribbles down Mac’s face and he doesn’t know whose it is, all he knows is that he can’t stop. When Dennis leads him to the edge of his bed, Mac follows. He always follows Dennis, no matter where he leads him.

It’s surreal. He's still under the influence of Dee’s drugs, and when Dennis touches him, there's a time lag--Mac can see his hands trace over the skin of his chest, can see the fingers at his belt, but it takes a few seconds for the sensations to register. Dennis is on top of him, stroking Mac’s dick and squeezing Mac’s balls, and then one devilish hand dives lower, lower, traces the crack of his ass and presses a knuckle against his hole.

This is new, this isn’t something they’ve done before, excepting the day they pretended to be partners in real estate and partners in life and Mac doesn’t remember so he didn't count it. _Mac,_ Dennis says, he says _Mac_ like it’s a prayer and Mac says _yes, Amen, yes._

Dennis lets go, and Mac keens, certain he’s said the wrong thing, that he’s lost Dennis forever. But he’s just reaching into his drawer, grabbing for the lube. One hesitant finger presses against Mac's hole, it’s cold and wet and weird and he flinches but Dennis whispers soft soothing sounds: _Just relax. Just let me in, baby boy, I’ll make you feel so good._ Mac listens, closes his eyes and waits as Dennis inserts another finger, two more, hooks them up at an unspeakable angle that sets Mac’s nerves on fire. Just when he thinks he can’t take anymore, Dennis withdraws his fingers and replaces them with his dick.

Dennis takes his time, pushing slowly into Mac, gauging his reaction inch by inch. When Mac sighs (it’s an endless keening sound, it makes Dennis’s eyes shine in the dark) he pushes all the way in, and Mac is lost, he grabs every part of Dennis he can reach and asks for _more, please, more;_  Dennis gives it to him, thrusting slowly now, then faster, harder. The hand on his cock carefully coaxes his orgasm out of him, and Mac can’t feel anything but he can feel this, where Dennis’s body is connected to his own, and he can’t help it, he comes all over their stomachs and chests. Then Dennis groans, drives into him deep and lingers; Mac feels him come with such force he sees semen shooting behind his eyelids.

And in the aftermath, Dennis is gentle, he withdraws his cock slowly, agonizingly, and Mac can feel the semen spilling from his asshole onto the sheets and it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care. Dennis kisses him softly, chastely, without tongue, splays his fingers across Mac’s chest and spreads his semen across his skin. _Did you feel that,_ Dennis asks, and Mac nods-- _yes, yes I felt it._ They fall into sleep staring at each other’s faces in the dark.   

When Mac wakes up, he’s sicker than he’s ever been. The discomfort is deeper than a simple hangover: he’s feverish and shaking and there’s no part of his body that doesn’t ache and Mac blames Dee’s drugs and Mac blames Dennis’s desire and Mac blames himself. Dennis snores softly next to him, and Mac chances a glance at him and immediately regrets everything he’s ever done to deserve this.

In the confessional, he whispers from his aching throat _Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have engaged in premarital sodomy with a man, and God, I liked it, I’m sorry God, I liked it._ The priest doesn’t ask questions; just assigns Mac his repentance.

Mac chokes on his penance: _O Lord Jesus, our Savior, forgive me my sins. Count not my transgressions, but rather my tears of repentance. Remember not my iniquities, but more especially, my sorrow for the offenses I have committed against you._ No matter how many times he says them, the words are not enough to cleanse Mac of his guilt. He wishes he could bathe in holy water--maybe that would be enough to stop Dennis’s touch from burning on his skin.

 

 

Soon after the twin’s birthday, Charlie actually starts seeing someone, gets himself a weird girlfriend, and Mac is happy for him. For the first time in years, Charlie has let up on his fixation with the Waitress. He stops the hard-core inhalants, takes up healthy hobbies: no hunting leprechauns and ghouls, he’s on normal people shit. He and Ruby go to cheese tastings together (figures Charlie would find love with a woman who loves cheese as much as he does). Ruby’s enthusiasm for cheese is so great that she takes Charlie on a weekend trip to a dairy farm, and Charlie is smitten--Mac figures only Charlie would consider a trip to a cheese farm romantic, but evidently Ruby feels the same. They plan another trip to Amish country, to a different dairy farm, not too long afterwards.

“Hey Mac, me and Ruby are going to Lancaster to a sheep farm this weekend. You wanna come?” Charlie gazes at Mac expectantly as they mop down the bar. “Ruby says they make an amazing pecorino.”

“I don’t know dude, it might be weird. I don’t want to be the third wheel on your romantic getaway.” Mac takes another swig of his beer, then lazily swooshes around his mop.

“I wouldn’t worry about that dude, Ruby said Trevor was going to come. Anyway their family owns a bunch of stock or whatever in the farm, so we’ll be staying over on Saturday night--free rooms at the inn, bro. The spoils of the rich.”

So he accepts the invitation. He bangs Trevor in their shared room in the farmhouse attic that night, and in the morning neither Charlie nor Ruby remark on how used up they look over their hearty, butter-filled dairy breakfasts.

Mac suspects that Charlie’s planned it that way, of course he has. He’s dumb with words, but smarter than he lets on. Charlie says _yes_ even when he's not sure what Mac is asking.

And if Mac starts tagging along on Charlie’s dates with Ruby, just to see Trevor, it’s not like a double date or anything. If he stays over at the Taft mansion a couple of nights a week, it’s not a big deal. Charlie doesn't let on that he suspects anything. The rest of the gang is too caught up in themselves to notice. It takes weeks, even, before Dennis catches on to anything out of the ordinary.

 

 

“Dammit, Dennis, did you leave a dirty condom in my bed?”

“Yeah, like three nights ago. It took you this long to find it? Gross.” Dennis’s grin says _Gotcha._ Says, _I know you don't come home at night._

The next day, Mac bangs Trevor in Dennis’s room out of spite. He knows exactly where Dennis hides the cameras, has all the angles memorized. He leaves the tape in the recorder, where he knows Dennis will be sure to find it.

He doesn’t count on Dennis getting his revenge by showing the tape at the rich people party. Trevor had reasons of his own for not wanting to make a big deal about their relationship--his dad had threatened to write Trevor’s inheritance out of the will if he doesn’t produce heirs for the illustrious Taft name in front of the whole country club--and any hopes Mac might have at reconciliation evaporate when Charlie reveals he was just using Ruby to make the Waitress jealous. He tells himself he’s not disappointed that he and Trevor were nothing more than pawns in yet another of Charlie's long cons.

God works in mysterious ways: losing Trevor Taft is one of them. When Mac’s ready to go back to church, God will be waiting for him.

He's not ready yet.


	13. no matter what you say there are some debts we never pay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You say it's money that we need  
> As if we're the only mouths to feed  
> I know that no matter what you say  
> There are some debts we never pay
> 
> Working for the church while your family dies  
> You take what they give you  
> And you keep it inside  
> Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home  
> Hear the soldier groan we'll got it at alone
> 
> I can taste the fear  
> Lift me up and take me out of here  
> Don't want to fight, don't want to die  
> Just want to hear you cry"  
> \--Arcade Fire, Intervention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season nine: references "mac day", "the gang squashes their beefs". some dialogue from "flowers for charlie". 
> 
> hard drugs. bridge people. codependency. alcohol. assholery. seriously, don't huff gas, there's no future in it. 
> 
> shameless self promotion: i got a tumblr! i'm @the-stoned-ranger. come drink and macdennis with me! apologies that that this took awhile... i wanted to make sure i knew how this fic ended before i posted this, so hopefully i won't have to go back and edit it later on. season 10 will be the last for this because i'm too poor to buy season 11 and i've only seen each episode once. thanks for your patience and thanks for reading!

On Charlie Day, the Gang had gone dumpster diving and waded in raw sewage. On Dennis Day, they tied ropes in knots until their thumbs cramped. Dee used her day to try and civilize them, put them inside her twisted fantasy of either Sex and the City or Seinfeld or some horrible amalgamation of the two, which only succeeded in getting the entire Gang so drunk and heated they had been kicked out of the fancy bar so they headed back to Paddy’s to drink in spite for the rest of the night.

It's only right that Mac Day begins with a sermon on the evils of homosexuality, hangovers be damned. He needs his friends to stay righteous when Country Mac arrives.

It backfires, Mac’s plans always do. The Gang is smitten by Country Mac, thinks he’s awesome because he jumps off of bridges and disses science bitches. Country Mac smokes pot and waxes philosophically at the stars. He can admit to a room full of strangers that he’s been using his time oiling up beefcakes to get their numbers for his personal use.

“You know, I’ve been thinking, I don’t hate any of that stuff, I just hate Mac.”

Mac’s fingers ache to stab Dennis in the eyeball for saying that, to do something so awful and awesome that he takes it all back. But he doesn’t bother. Let them have Country Mac and his blasphemous sermons. In the end, Country Mac’s hubris is the death of him, and it turns out the gang is stuck with shitty City Mac after all.

On Frank Day, the gang flushes Country Mac’s remains into the sewer then goes crab-grabbing until their fingers bleed.

 

 

Charlie and Frank get invited to the bridge people's opium festival that fall, and they invite the rest of the gang. As far as Mac can tell, it’s the Junkie Christmas--the bridge people harvest all the ditch poppies from the greater Philadelphia area and make raw opium from the pods, then get high for days.

Still. None of them, as it turns out, are above the bridge people when there’s high-quality raw opium on offer. The whole gang shows up to harvest poppy plants from two ditches by the highway that the bridge people had surreptitiously sown months earlier.

The junkies actually have a good con going on with their ditch poppies and tend to their harvest meticulously. Dee and Frank snort grey powdered lines as they help the bridge people scrape the latex from the dried poppies while Charlie inhales the fumes coming off the pods curing over the fire.

The smoke has been making Mac feel weird, like he’s watching everyone in slow motion. Opiates have never been his thing, but once again his gluttony has gotten the better of him; he can never resist new and exotic drugs. Still, the bridge people were too numerous, too close, and too dangerous. He wanders to the water’s edge when he finds Dennis reclining in the rear bed of an ancient rotten pickup truck the bridge people must have found in the river and dragged ashore.

Mac lies down in the rusty truck bed, right next to Dennis who reflexively moves over to make room for him. The opium fire reflects onto the water, one great big glare. Still, the mean lights of Camden glower from across the shore.

“Do you see those lights, across the river?” Mac asks after a moment.

Dennis makes a noncommittal sound. Mac pushes the words out in a wheeze. “That’s Camden, New Jersey.” He takes a deep breath. “My dad took me there a lot when I was a kid.”

His friend doesn’t react, doesn’t even blink. Mac tries to swallow the words back down but they won’t obey him; the dam is broken and the words come tumbling out. He tells Dennis about the dark hallways, the living zombies and their syringes, about all the times he and Luther had found themselves on the wrong side of a gun. He tells Dennis how his dad taught him to run, and how just like the drugs it worked until it didn’t anymore.

He doesn’t notice at first that Dennis is holding his hand, not until he squeezes hard enough to hurt, fingernails driving into flesh. Dennis’s fingertips are stained black from the opium sap; Mac’s are too. They’re both smoked out, pupils pinned, breath slow and deliberate underneath the stars. “Mac. It’s over now.”  Dennis strokes his wrist. “It was over a long time ago.”

Dennis doesn’t understand how it’s not over, how it’s _never_ over, how Mac dreams about the living zombies’ dead eyes and their terrible scabs. But the soft, familiar caresses calm his racing heart eventually. Dennis has this power over him.

The opium makes the weight of his thirty-seven years fall in on him, makes his bones ache and his heart pound. So what if Mac cries then, so what if he knows Dennis is just going through the motions of comfort with him because that's what his years of carefully monitoring the behavior of normal, feeling humans has taught him. Beside, if there’s one thing his faith has taught him it’s this: it doesn't matter if you mean it, it's going through the motions that counts the most. This, more than anything, _this_ is what he needs: Dennis’s taut neck and woody cologne, Mac will take it any way he offers.

Dennis is on offer now, and Mac isn’t strong enough to resist. He sucks Dennis’s neck, tastes his own tears; they’re bitter like the opium resin staining the pale fingers on his lips. They make out under the bridge like teenagers, the kisses lingering for hours. By the end, Dennis’s lips are chapped, the cupid’s bow rubbed raw from Mac’s stubble. Mac’s lips feel cracked enough to peel and Dennis’s saliva is drying on his chin.

At dawn, they make their way back to the bonfire, which is now just a handful of coals gently smoking. Dee’s awake, draped in a bridge blanket and sucking the mouth of a bottle as she pokes a stick into the embers, when they come up over the ridge.

“Where were you last night,” she asks, sniffling. It’s not a question, not quite a statement either; the bridge drugs have sapped all the inflection from her voice.

“Nowhere,” Dennis says.

Dee shivers in the morning coolness. “Whatever.” She tosses her branch into the dying fire. “Are we done here?”

“Where’s Charlie and Frank?” Mac asks.

Dee shrugs. She takes a final swig of the bottle, then offers it to him. It’s a cheap fortified wine that tastes like rubbing alcohol and Gatorade, but he takes a sip then passes it to Dennis in unholy communion.

They stumble to the Range Rover, passing the fortified wine amongst themselves until it’s empty. Mac pitches the bottle down the riverbank, is satisfied with the resulting smash. He and Dennis and Dee eat pancakes and bacon and coffee at the IHOP on their way back into town.

 

 

Under the flourescent lights at the restaurant, their skin looks green and their eyes are dark and dull in their sockets. The three of them are confronted with normal people, people who go to work and raise children and own businesses that contribute to society and the economy. There’s a stark difference between people like that and people like them, whose business is no more than a tax scheme for an aging hobo millionaire, who spend their nights committing felonies with the bridge people.

Mac ignores them all, dumps more sugar into his coffee, watching Dennis and Dee fight over the syrup.

“My own sister, hooked on bridge drugs.” Dennis looks at his sister sanctimoniously. She flips him the bird and swipes at the syrup.

“Oh, eat me, asshole. I’m not hooked on bridge drugs,” Dee mutters, wiping her running nose. “Beside, it’s not like anyone forced you to come.”

“Get over yourself, Dennis. You’re no better than the rest of us,” Mac interjects, successfully liberating the maple syrup from Dennis and judiciously pouring it over his bacon and pancakes. “You look like shit, just like me and Dee.”

“Mac, your face looks stupid,” Dennis grumbles. “Jesus Christ, _please_ , will you do _anything_ else with your dumb face?”

Mac juts his lower lip outward, gives Dennis puppy eyes. Dee howls with laughter at his pathetic look, and eventually he and Dennis join her, cracking up until the wait staff begins to eye them suspiciously. Dennis pays the tab in dirty bills and Mac steals the cash back; the three of them speed out of the parking lot just as the IHOP employees catch on to their scam.   

They drop Dee back at her place, and Dennis parks the Range Rover in their building lot, turns off the engine but doesn't open the door.

“Mac, listen. I hope you know that your dad sucks, and you’re better off without him.” Mac’s eyes meet his in the rearview mirror, and Dennis clears his throat. “I know I’m stuck with Frank, and he’s hardly better: he’s been involved in his own shady business dealings, he’s screwed over every single one of his associates, but at least he let me and Dee be kids while we had the chance.”

The corners of Dennis’s lips turn up in either a smile or a grimace. “We may have turned out fucked up anyway”--his laughter is cracked and full of phlegm--“but we chose that for ourselves. As adults.”

Mac moves forward in his seat, tries to protest, to say something that will prove Luther loves him. But Dennis reaches over the console and brushes the words from his mouth with his fingers. “Your dad took away your childhood,” he continues. “Maybe you don’t know how to hate him for that, but I do.”

Mac knows right from wrong, knows it's not right to hate anyone, that Jesus frowns upon that. But Dennis doesn't care what Jesus thinks, and Mac’s thankful for that, thankful that Dennis is willing to absorb his bad feelings and take them as his own. Mac twines their fingers together on the console. They're still stained by opium resin, still bitter with all their recent transgressions. He doesn't say anything but Dennis understands, grabs his grubby fingers more tightly and doesn't let go.

 

 

Last year Dee almost escaped them for good. This year, it’s Charlie’s turn. He’d been chosen as the subject of an intelligence experiment, had decided he was too good to kill rats and plunge toilets and all the sundry Charlie things that kept the bar from literally collapsing into itself.

That’s how Mac and Dennis and Dee ended up trying to catch the rat. Ratting’s Charlie work, always has been, always will be, but this rat was twice as big and ten times as crafty as a normal rat...

Desperate times call for desperate measures. You can’t trust a rat of that size. If it got any bigger, it would grow a soul for sure, and that's not something Mac thinks he can handle, rats in Paradise. _The bastard's gotta go down, he’s got to die_.

Dennis is on his hands and knees next to the hole the rat chewed in the wall. “OK, Mac, I’ve located him! He’s right by the hole.”

Mac swings Charlie’s rat stick. “Good, cause when he comes out, I’m gonna bash him!”

The rat scurries away.

“Goddammit, Mac. We’re smarter than that! That’s just going to spread rat blood and disease.” Dennis gets up off the floor. “You can’t just bash a rat with this kind of superior intellect!” But a normal rat trap’s not good enough for Dennis, who insists that a rat with this level of intelligence must be _seduced_ with sensual music and French cheeses.

He’s got Brie and a boombox and Mac has no idea what this has to do with rat bashing, but he indulges him, listens as Dennis explains, “See, I’m going to play some enticing tunes for the little guy, and I’m gonna bait this glue trap with some Brie cheese.” Dennis bites his lip as he puts a chunk of Brie onto the rat trap and turns on the music. It’s another one of his weird 80’s ballads, but he catches Mac’s eye as he begins to sway in time to the song.

Mac can feel the question in his eyes, but he can’t ask it. Doesn’t seem to matter to Dennis, who lowers his eyelids and sucks his lips into his mouth, steps to the beat of the music a little more deliberately, now.

He takes a step forward, clumsily imitating Dennis’s movements, but it’s Dennis who closes the distance to put his arms around Mac's waist. They sway gently to the beat, and Mac rests his cheek against Dennis’s face, holds him by his hips. He feels like he’s at a high school dance--awkward and excited, clumsily slow-dancing with his crush. It’s impossibly intimate and innocent all at the same time.

They don’t kiss, but their limbs know how to fit into each other’s empty spaces in a way that betrays how well they know each other’s bodies. They dance in an awkward two-step until the music is interrupted by an uncoordinated crash. Dee’s on the floor, grabbing for a cardboard box she must have dropped and Mac is thankful for a reason to look at something other than Dennis, who turns and shuts the cheesy power ballad off. Mac knows he’s pink as shit, can feel the color burning into his cheeks, but Dennis’s complexion is even and clear and betrays no sign of any embarrassment at all.

“Hey boners, you guys catch that rat yet?” Dee sounds like she’s had the breath knocked out of her. She looks like she’s seen a ghost. Mac can see the tiny gears in her tiny bird brain turning as she tries to make sense of the scene in front of her.

“Any minute now, Dee!” Dennis mutters as he crouches down to place the glue trap in the rat hole. Mac stands there and tries not to check out Dennis’s ass. He fails.

“I’m telling you, glue traps are barbaric and messy. I have come up with the intelligent solution: ultrasonic rodent repellent.”

“Those things don’t work, Dee," Dennis scoffs.

“You wanna bet?” She asks as she kneels to place the trap. “Oh, goddammit! Goddammit, I’m stuck to your glue trap!” Dee shrieks again--the rat is _on her_ , it’s _eating_ the goddamned _cheese_ right out of the trap. Mac tells her that he hopes the rat eats her gigantic man-hand down to the bones, and then keeps eating the bones too.

“At least then you’ll be able to get out of the wall, sis,” Dennis snarks, and he and Mac laugh as Dee kicks the air, sputtering and jerking, stuck to a trap designed to trick an animal with a brain the size of a walnut by her oversize hands.

The gasoline is Mac’s idea--solvents dissolve glue, he’s pretty certain Charlie told him that once--and he knows the place in the vents Charlie keeps his chemicals. It's also Mac’s idea to huff the gasoline, but you have to do Charlie drugs if you’re going to be doing Charlie work. There’s no other way.

Dennis and Dee aren’t the type to watch someone blast off and leave them behind, so they fight over the gas tank and try to come up with ways to get Dee out of the wall. All the gasoline does nothing to free Dee from the wall, goddamn her, and they’ve huffed a _lot_ of gasoline. Serves her right for interrupting something she’ll never be able to understand. Birds are too stupid to love, after all.

In the background, Ren and Stimpy plays on the bar’s ancient TV. Dennis and Dee laugh, shoving rat cheese into their mouths with their grubby fingers. This cartoon brings them back to simpler times, back to a time before they learned to hate each other, and their voices rise in a dissonant chord as they sing, _Happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy,_ or repeat _Log! Log! It's better than bad, it’s good!_ before collapsing into hysterics.

Mac has never seen Ren and Stimpy before, and while the twins’ innocent glee is contagious he’s kind of sick to his stomach. The cartoon is gross, full of close ups of hairballs and boogers and rotten teeth. It’s something Charlie would love, for sure, but Mac’s not so certain that’s a point in its favor. He closes his eyes and burrows into Dennis, whose bony body he’s been using as a cushion, and rests his ringing head on Dennis’s chest.

They watch Ren fall apart when Stimpy gets the chance of a lifetime to be a star cuddled into each other. Dee clears her throat and breaks the gas stupor. “You know, they say that Ren and Stimpy were gay together.”

Dennis raises an eyebrow. “What's that supposed to mean?” he asks dangerously, running his fingers through Mac’s hair in a dare.

Dee considers Dennis, lying on the floor all tangled up in his best friend, and backs down. She’s not going to spoil the tenderness of the moment just for a killer one-liner.

She wants to, at least. Dee might be alone forever but if her brother’s found someone who can put up with him, then she might as well be happy for him, especially when that person turns out to be just as awful as he is. “It's just a thing some people say,” she sighs finally.

“Anyway your theory is stupid.” Dee's gone too far, now Dennis is out for blood. “It's exactly the kind of thing someone who has no friends would say.”

“Fine, fine!” Dee fumes. “I won’t bother asking what the fuck I walked in on this afternoon.” She  makes a face, and uses her one free hand to grab for the gasoline. “I hope you guys fall so far up each other’s assholes that you die there.” It’s so graphic and unnecessary that the three of them crack up. They’re still down there laughing when Frank finds them, deep in the gas stupor, watching gross cartoons.

In the end, it turns out Charlie is as stupid as he’d always been, only way more arrogant. The gang can wear that out of him, given enough time.

 

 

Two weeks later, Mac and Dennis stand together in the charred ruin of their apartment. They’re here to salvage what they can from the ashes, but it doesn’t look like there’s much of anything left. The kitchen and living room are burnt to a crisp; half of the bedroom walls have been eaten up by flames.

It’s a fitting metaphor for what they’ve become, Mac thinks, as he removes the charred crucifix from his bedroom wall. It crumbles in his hands; it figures, his faith has been wearing thin lately. God doesn’t talk to him the way he used to. Well. To be fair he doesn’t talk to God that much anymore, but it was God who stopped talking first.  

In an ironic twist of fate, his rosary and his Bible survive the blaze, but not much else. He takes them with him to Dee’s house. Mac doesn’t believe in coincidence.

Dennis brings the handful of sextapes that hadn’t melted in the fire. Dennis doesn't believe in divine intervention.

They’ve each managed to salvage some clothing and for the next week, the smell of smoke follows them everywhere they go. Mac’s used up, he’s burnt out like a match; Dennis doesn’t fare much better.

Mac’s glad Dee is there to take the worst of it; when they turn on each other she’s good at defusing them, even if it's just to make them laugh at her birdliness. She makes a good punchline, and she knows it; it suits her: _I'm Sweet Dee and the joke’s on me._ Up close it’s obvious there’s nothing funny about their lives, so she gives them something to laugh at, to take the tension out of the room.

Dee is good for Dennis, better than Mac. She somehow avoids pressing his buttons, even when he’s pressing hers. Sometimes it seems Dennis wants her to hurt him, tell him he’s a failure and an awful human, but Dee never takes the bait. (He would have.)

Mac’s grateful for her, makes sure he adds a prayer for Dee to the long tab he's got going over at Saint Patrick's parish. He lights candles for his friends after Mass that week, reciting his prayers as he watches them burn down, and it reminds him of all the other fires he’s set but especially the one on Thanksgiving, the fire that changed everything.

He tries not to remember the way Dennis had looked when he drilled the apartment door into the frame. Behind the heavy door, the fire raged, and all their enemies screamed for their lives. He heard the wayward souls screaming for mercy, Mac knows him well enough to know that, but he doesn’t care, just adds another screw into the doorframe.

Mac’s at a crossroads, knows he can knock Dennis’s hand off of the drill and turn the key in the lock, setting all their demons free to torment them another day. But he doesn’t. Mac turns and runs and follows Dennis, all the way into temptation.


	14. I went further than I thought I could

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And I'll use you as a warning sign  
> That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind  
> And I'll use you as a focal point  
> So I don't lose sight of what I want
> 
> And I've moved further than I thought I could  
> But I missed you more than I thought I would  
> And I'll use you as a warning sign  
> That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind
> 
> And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be  
> Right in front of me  
> Talk some sense to me"  
> \--Amber Run, I Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> season 10. the beginning of the end, this is where things start to really diverge from canon. references "charlie work". alcohol. assholery. inhalants. additional trigger warning: rape joke (i am problematic; don't worry i already hate myself).
> 
> sorry for the delay. but this grew into its own monster at over 9,000 words so i'm breaking into 3 parts. there will be 2 more chapters posted in the next few days, as soon as i restock on my sweet, sweet tequila. this stuff is courage in a cup.

The chicken, steak, and airmiles scam had been Mac’s idea in the first place. Of course, when he’d first mentioned it, everyone ignored him. Yet an hour later, when Dennis repeated Mac’s plan to them verbatim, Dee and Frank were on board instantly. It was a good goddamned plan.

In the moment, Mac lets it go, lets Dennis take all the credit to feed his fragile ego, but over the next few days his resentment simmers until it’s boiling over. He waits until the day of the scheme, when Dee and Frank and Charlie head down to the basement to check for rats, before confronting him.

“Hey, Dennis, could I, uh, talk to you for a minute?” Mac stutters as he half heartedly smears the chicken shit around the floor with his mop.

Dennis groans. “Are you doing that thing again, where you try to bring something up _casually?”_

“But you have to admit, Dennis, it _was_ my idea--”

“Look at me when you’re talking to me!” He shrieks and lunges, scratching Mac's face, so Mac punches him in retaliation. Dennis goes down; Mac presses him to the floor.

“You're too much of a coward to look me in the eyes.” Dennis leans forward and whispers accusations in Mac’s ear: "You can suck my dick at night but you won't look me in the eye in broad daylight. You're ashamed. Because you can't wait to take my cock again. Admit it."

Mac moans.

"No, say it." Dennis demands.

Mac's on top of Dennis when he rolls his hips, sending their cocks into electrifying contact. "This is what you want," Dennis says, "this is what you want" (their hips crash together again), "my cock is what you want."

It's true. Mac has run out of denials. "Your dick. Your dick--Is what I want."

Dennis's mouth crashes onto his. Mac tastes blood and whiskey and something else, something undeniably Dennis. There's heat. Hell is hot. Their hips grind together, and Mac dares to be greedy, pumping his hips and muttering the Lord's name in vain.

 _If I must burn, I will burn for you._  

And that's when the door to the basement opens with a groan: Frank and Charlie and Dee are standing open-mouthed on the stairs. They’re caught, red-lipped and knuckles torn, breathing heavily. "Get off me," Dennis says, and Mac lets him push him away. The whole gang looks at them: Mac's shirt is ripped at the sleeves and Dennis has a black eye and a bloody lip.

“It’s not--it’s not what it looks like,” Mac stutters. It’s _exactly_ what it looks like.

Somehow they pull themselves together, enough that they pass the health inspection, like they always do. Mac’s not sure how Charlie manages to pull it off every year, but he does, and none of the gang cares enough to ask questions.

Dennis doesn’t acknowledge Mac all day, and the rest of the gang keeps _looking_ at him and talking softly as though they think a loud noise might break him. _Whatever_. He’s not going to fall apart over Dennis scratching him like a bitch. It's not the worst damage Dennis has done.

 

 

Still, Mac spends the night at Charlie's. Charlie and Frank are worried about him, he can tell, because instead of cat food and Charlie drugs, they feed him orange juice and bruised bananas and chicken soup that’s been heated on the radiator and served directly from the can. They treat him like he has the flu even though it's nothing more than a scratch but Mac's not complaining because they're generous with the cough syrup.

Mac and Charlie pass a bottle of Nyquil between the themselves as Frank snores on the foldout couch. Charlie’s eaten cat food and huffed so much paint thinner that the only reason Mac can see for him not being comatose right now is that he’d graduated to new and exotic chemicals with the bridge people a long time ago, so paint thinner for Charlie was like… beer to an alcoholic: enough to maintain a pleasant buzz, but useless if you wanted to get blasted.

Charlie takes a swig of Nyquil from the bottle in his hand. "Man, I know you have this weird thing for Dennis. But you can't try to rape a man--"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rape?" He’s looking Charlie in the eyes, completely honest--Mac’s a shit liar. His wet brown eyes give him away immediately, as well as the palpable cloud of guilt he carries with him the way other people carry luggage. _I'm no rapist, Charlie. Fuck you for even thinking that._

"Wait, isn't that what you were doing? With the fighting and the blood and the kissing stuff?" Charlie sounds genuinely concerned.

"No, you asshole. Dennis kissed _me,”_ Mac protests. _“_ Well, first he hit me, and then I hit him back, and then he kissed me."

"Well, Mac, that's good. Deny it. Keep denying it! It's just a he-said... he-said situation." Charlie nods his head up and down, and even though he’s not wearing his lawyering shirt Mac feels like he’s on trial.

Mac blows his hair out of his eyes. The last thing he needed was for Charlie to go into full lawyering mode over this--he’d end up being charged with something for sure. "Jesus Christ, Charlie, listen to me. Dennis kissed _me."_

Charlie doesn’t believe him--he flashes Mac a pitying look. "Look, Mac, my practice is bird law, but I think I can get you off on this. All you gotta do is trust me, now…. Have you been drinking?"

"Yes, Charlie, of course I've been drinking! How much alcohol do you think is in Nyquil? This is like, the third bottle,” Mac says. He’s got a bit of a buzz going, but frankly, the cough syrup is a huge disappointment as far as recreational substances are concerned. He remembers this working a lot better when they were teenagers.

“No, before the _incident,”_  Charlie insists, an insinuation in his voice.

“Oh, um. Four. But that’s over a course of a few hours, so really I was just maintaining,” Mac explains. It’s no use--Charlie’s got that deranged look again, like a bloodhound trailing a vampire.

“Don't look at me like that,” Mac mutters. “How many beers have you had today?" _I'm not even going to ask you about the Charlie drugs, dude._

"Well, six…” Mac glares and Charlie corrects himself, “-teen. But the real question is, was Dennis drinking? When you tried to bang him?"

"Look, it doesn't matter if we were drinking! We _always_ drink.” It's the sad truth. “In case you forgot, we can’t _not_ drink, we get sick.”

Charlie looks at him with more understanding than Mac deserves and shakes his head. Mac’s heard you’re not supposed to mix booze and cough syrup, especially the nighttime kind, but he decides he’ll take his chances. Eventually he and Charlie pass out in the beanbag chair from mixing too much Nyquil and alcohol.

 

 

When Mac wakes up, it's already starting to get dark outside. His hangover hurts his whole body and he chugs the last of the warm orange juice to try and quench his thirst. It's not enough.

But Mac doesn't go to the bar; he decides to go back to Dee’s instead. He hadn’t brought a change of clothes with him to Charlie’s, and a night at Charlie’s was equal to a week’s worth of normal filth, maybe even two. And then there was that weird thing about all the random cats in the bed in the middle of the night…

 _Charlie and Frank are basically feral at this point. Jesus Christ, what are those bridge people doing to my friends?_ It’s possible to love someone but not be able to live with them, and if he was going to continue being friends with the Gruesome Twosome he could definitely never, ever, live with them, not if it means he has to huff paint and eat cat food in order to sleep.

Mac's key works just fine--the locks haven't changed. Even if he hates them sometimes, at least Dennis and Dee don’t sleep ass-to-ass on a filthy futon; they don't do shit like change the locks on each other when they argue. At first, the apartment appears empty--all the curtains are closed, so Mac doesn't notice Dennis swaddled in a blanket on the couch until he sits on him.

“Move over,” Mac orders, but Dennis doesn't listen.

“Leave me alone. I'm never drinking again.” There are two bottles of whiskey, both empty, on the coffee table. “I think the cumulative hangover might kill me.”

“Well, that’s an awful way to die, Dennis,” Mac says, elbowing him until he sits up. Mac leans back into the couch cushions, offering him his bottle of Gatorade.

Dennis drinks the rest of it in one desperate swallow. “Don’t care. It’s not like dying is ever painless. You’re supposed to feel it.” He shudders. “If you don’t feel it, how are you supposed to know if you’re really dead?”

“Jesus, Dennis, don’t say shit like that.”

“Why not? _Why not?_ ” He’s got the edge of despair in his voice. “If I feel it, why can’t I say it?”

“Dennis. You are not going to die.” Mac puts an arm around him. “You haven’t even begun to peak.”

Dennis sinks into him on the couch. “You smell like Charlie’s dirty socks,” he mutters, but he doesn’t make Mac shower or get changed, just rests his face against Mac’s neck, breathing him in slowly, deliberately, like medicine.

“Now you’re making sense!” Mac chuckles and Dennis laughs along with him and the argument between them dissolves into a caress when Dennis runs his hands down Mac’s ribs. The kiss tastes terrible--like old booze, like something rotting from the inside out--but it makes his heart race because it’s _Dennis_ , he has that effect on him.

If Mac was going to say anything else, he couldn't anyway; not now, with Dennis in his face, in his mouth, everywhere Mac can feel. He doesn’t resist when Dennis guides him across the room to the underinflated air mattress on the floor, the hammock hanging empty above them. "Mac," Dennis asks, "Let me make it good for you." His hair in Mac’s mouth. His hand on Mac's dick, which bulges obscenely into his fingers.

It's hurried and sloppy and Dee could walk in on them any moment, but it's also hot, hotter than Mac expected, at least as hot as Hell as far as he can tell. Dennis doesn't take his eyes off Mac's dick as he strokes, and Mac watches Dennis watching his dick in the dark.

"I--I'm going to--" It's too soon. Too soon for this.

"Let me have it," Dennis asks, his voice breaking into a plea. "Let me have your cum."

And that's all Mac hears before he thrusts into Dennis's hand, and lets it all go.

Afterward, he's flushed red and ashamed. He wants to close his eyes and he wants to look away, but Dennis won't let him: "Watch me," Dennis orders, and he opens his fly, rubbing Mac's cum onto the head of his already-hard cock.

Mac whimpers. He grabs for Dennis's dick but Dennis swats his hands away, admonishing, "Keep your eyes open. Watch me." The next words escape in a strangled moan: _Just watch me, just watch, just--._ And all of Mac's filthiest dreams are coming true: Dennis’s thighs are spread wide, and he's jerking off with the same hand he'd used on Mac, the filthy sound of his wet cock filling the room. His eyes are open, and Mac can feel them on him, waiting for a reaction, but it's all he can do not to look away.

When Dennis comes onto his chest with a loud moan, Mac lies on top of him, the come growing cool and sticky between their chests and he's surprised by how much he likes the feel of another man's semen on his skin. As their breath slows, Dennis dusts small bites up and down Mac's neck, on the place just behind his ear that always makes him sigh, but they don't linger long; it's late.

Dennis reaches for the buttons on his shirt, but Mac bats his hands away and brushes the shirt off his back instead, tracing his fingers up and down the bare skin which is soft and cool and impossibly smooth. Dennis hesitantly yanks on Mac’s tshirt, and he lifts his arms over his head, lets Dennis undress him as they lie together naked under the blankets, the semen drying between their bellies as they wait for sleep to come.

 

 

Except when Dee enters the apartment with a stumble and a curse, Mac wakes up. He’s always been a light sleeper--he’d had to be, since his dad’s customers and creditors had shown up at all hours. That’s another one of Luther’s lessons. He’s dehydrated as shit and his tongue tastes like Charlie’s socks and Dennis is lying next to him on the leaky air mattress, the hammock hanging flaccid and empty above their sleeping bodies. Their rumpled blanket doesn’t hide the fact that they’re shirtless and almost certainly not wearing pants.

Dee’s in a huff (something about the bar being overrun with bridge people? Mac’s not listening, not really, he’s naked and can't escape. _God damn her_.) He’s half asleep but he can see the shock in Dee’s expression. Her eyes are opened so wide they appear to take up half her face, and he’s thankful that she’s so worked up that she can’t stop spouting wrath long enough to mention anything else.

“Listen, Mac, we _had to mace the junkies out of the bar like lunatics_ ,” Dee rants. She’s hot, burning up. “We _need_ more than two bartenders to keep a crowd like that in line. That bridge bitch almost walked out on a two hundred dollar tab!” She shoots Mac a withering look, and he mumbles _sorry_ because it seems like he should say _something_.

“It almost got ugly tonight, dude. The one night we need you guys, and you fucked off all day and Dennis decided to try to drink himself to death on the couch last night… Unbelieveable!” She shakes her head, narrowing her eyes at Mac.

“And I don’t even have it in me to try and talk about this--this thing I obviously walked in on. I just really hope Dennis left the tequila, because I am going to get blackout drunk and hope I forget everything that happened tonight in the morning,” Dee adds, walking into the kitchen and knocking about the cabinets til she finds what she’s looking for. “Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll forget my whole life.” She cracks open the tequila, takes a long sip, then hands the bottle to Mac.

When he reaches for it, the blanket falls from his chest, revealing a sliver of Dennis’s back.

Dee whispers, _Drink up_ , and he does.

They sit in the living room, passing the tequila, Dennis asleep between them. Dee clears her throat after a minute, says, “At the very least, you seem to bring out the best in him, not like there’s much but _still_.” She takes a contemplative sip of the tequila, then continues, “He’s too proud to tell you, but I hope you know he needs you. More than anyone should need anybody, really, but when you’re not around he’s a complete mess, for what it’s worth.”

Mac nods. It seems like he should answer her, but the last two days have wrung him out and he can't find the words in his head to say anything. He just strokes Dennis’s hair softly until Dee gets up off the floor and heads to her bedroom, tequila in hand.

 

 

Mac skips confession the next morning. He makes coffee instead, having been woken up at an ungodly hour by Dee blow-drying her hair. By the time Dee finishes in the bathroom, he and Dennis have drunk all the coffee.

Dee exits the bathroom, yawning. “Hey boners,” (no one says “good morning” in this household, but this is pretty damn close) “got any more of that for me?”

“Birds don’t drink coffee, Dee.”

Dennis chimes in. “The caffeine is too much for their feeble little hearts. You don't want your heart to explode, do you, Deandra?”

When Dee storms out to catch the bus, angrily muttering curses under her breath, Mac and Dennis slap hands and don't bother to let go.

 

 

He makes it to Paddy’s only twenty minutes late. Charlie’s just finishing his first beer of the day when Mac walks into the bar. His body crackles with restless energy, and he’s anxious for Dennis to finish his errands and show up for work.

He needs to do something useful to get rid of the strange feeling under his skin, so he does a quick inventory of their alcohol supply, then heads to the storage room as Charlie starts in on another beer.  Apparently he’s going to need another before he starts to deal with the abomination in the bar bathroom: another rat drowned in the urinal overnight, but Mac has only been half listening; he's too busy sneaking glances at the door.

Mac’s juggling two cases of beer and a handle of Wild Turkey when he overhears Dee squawking through the storeroom door; he pauses for a moment to listen. “Dammit, Charlie,” he hears, “we have to get them their own apartment. My living room is beginning to smell like balls.”

Charlie sputters, Mac can just about see him leaking beer onto the wooden bar. "I had to spit out my beer because of that. Thank you, Dee. You have wasted some perfectly good alcohol with your disgusting talk."

"No, seriously, Charlie,” Dee  screeches, “for the past week it's been really awful. Like, what are they eating?"

"Seriously?"

"Oh, you are disgusting, Charlie. Why do I even talk to you?" A beer cracks open. “Don't look at me like that! If I’m even going to _entertain_ the idea that my brother and his gross homophobic codependent boyfriend could be fornicating on my couch, I cannot possibly be sober. Think of the upholstery!”

Just then, Mac shudders, and the bottle of Jack falls to the ground and shatters loudly. “Oh shit dude, what’s that?”

Mac opens the storeroom door, carrying the two cases of beer with whiskey all over his pants from the knees down. “Uh, just dropped something. There’s some Charlie work waiting for you in there, bro.”

“Yeah, well. At least from the office I don't have to watch you staring at the door like a neurotic puppy waiting for his master to come back home,” Charlie says before heading to the basement to fetch his mop.

Dee chuckles, quickly hiding her smirk behind her hand; Mac cracks a beer and sips, saying nothing. They all know Charlie’s right. But it’s like the stack of empties piling up on the bar, one of those things you don’t talk about. Talk is expensive and drink is cheap, and it works until it doesn’t, and then they just keep drinking because they don’t know what else to do; it’s always worked before.


	15. but I missed you more than I thought I would

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "and I moved further than I thought I could  
> but I missed you more than I thought I would
> 
> and I'll use you as a warning sign  
> That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind
> 
> And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be  
> Right in front of me"  
> \--Amber Run, I Found
> 
> the acoustic version of this song is really worth a listen if you can find it.
> 
> anyway. continuation of season 10. references "the gang misses the boat". blowjobs. blasphemy. bad people doing bad things to each other. blowjobs. rape joke. a terrible bastardization of religious teachings. sorry this took so long! i was gonna post on thursday but prince died and then i had guests all weekend. notes at the end of the chapter this time to avoid spoilers.

It's 4 am. They’ve missed the boat, all of them; the whole gang tried to do something different for a change but it’s too late for that, they can’t change, they’re not good at it.

So they return to the apartment. Sweet Dee is asleep in her room as Mac and Dennis drink tequila on her couch. The cushions groan between the combined weight of their bodies and the twenty years of denial that takes up all the space between them.

“So, you couldn’t get it up with the hooker, huh?” Dennis shoots a shot and flashes Mac a cocky grin. “I never knew you had that… problem.”

Mac looks down at his hands and snorts. "Let's go back to the way things were, when you didn't ask any questions."

Dennis takes another shot, grimaces, says, "Mac, you fool. You don't have to live like this.”

Mac’s expression settles into a sneer, which stretches the skin of his face unnaturally. The curled lips and bared teeth feel like a fortress against the emotion bitter at the back of his throat.

Dennis’s next words hit him like a grenade: “If you can’t stop lying to yourself…” he trails off. Swallows, begins again. “You can at least stop lying to me."

"You want me to stop lying to you?" The fortress crumbles; Mac’s spitting, incredulous.

Dennis slams a shot of tequila, and the look in his eyes in manic, unhinged, and totally unnatural for the late hour; his face is too close, his breath smells like tequila and limes. "You are gay, Mac. Gay! Do you hear me?"

"Don't call me gay, dude." Mac reaches for the tequila but he doesn’t bother to pour another shot; instead, he drinks directly from the bottle in defiance.

"What's with all this bullshit about finally accepting yourself for who you are, then paying a hooker in angel dust to pretend to fuck you?" Dennis's eyes glint with bad intentions as he speaks.

"What, Dennis? You're jealous? After all the women you’ve banged?” Mac rolls his eyes. “You even got  _ married _ once.” And because Dennis can't deny it, he kisses Mac instead.

It's hard and fast and brutal and Mac loses himself in Dennis’s desire, Dennis who is kissing a wet trail down his body and breathing onto Mac’s dick through the fabric of his sweats. Mac moans, and Dennis pulls Mac’s cock out of his briefs and sucks it down in a single swallow. The waistband of the sweats presses against his balls with a delicious tension as Dennis slides his mouth up and down his cock, swirling his tongue around the head before he sucks Mac’s cock down to the hilt. Every time Mac gets close to coming, Dennis devilishly changes up his rhythm, until he’s gasping and biting his hands to keep from crying out.

Dennis takes mercy on him, finally, quickening his suction until Mac groans and squeals and spurts down his throat, the elastic waistband of Mac’s sweats acting as a makeshift cockring, prolonging his orgasm until he thinks he might die from the pleasure. Finally, his dick stops twitching, and Dennis slides up his body until they’re lying face-to-face.  _ Dennis, _ Mac whimpers, and Dennis silences him with a tongue that’s bitter with semen.

"I sucked your dick, Mac," Dennis whispers against his mouth. "What's gay about that?" He grabs Mac’s hand, places it between his legs, and Mac can feel his heat and the beat of his heart in the dick in the palm of his hand.

When Mac doesn’t respond, Dennis says, "Everything. Every word of that sentence is gay. You're the only one who doesn't know it."

Dennis is getting off on this. "Just taste it," he repeats, over and over again until the words stop making sense, and his dick throbs in Mac's hand and again in his mouth. He hasn't done this for years, hasn't sucked a dick in so long he’s certain he's forgotten how, but as soon as he tastes it he knows he will do this again the first chance he gets. Mac lets Dennis thread his fingers through his hair and push his dick deeper into his mouth, and Dennis whispers filthy things for his ears only-- _ take it like that, I've been waiting for you to suck me-- _

Mac can tell Dennis is close--his dick keeps throbbing against his tongue, his balls twitch in their sac. It's obscene, this whole scene, Mac with his face between Dennis's spread legs and Dennis's long fingered hands tugging at his hair, urging him to suck harder, using the filthiest of words as he thrusts into Mac's mouth until he shudders and moans and spills down his throat.

Mac sputters, trying to spit but he just ends up swallowing most of it. "Gross, dude, you could have warned me you were coming."

Dennis smiles again, one of the ones he thinks are cunning but are really just kind of creepy. "Better this way," he says, and wipes the cum off of Mac's chin with his thumb, wipes the cum off his lips with his tongue. Mac can't help but agree.

 

 

He wakes up early the next morning. It’s grey and foggy and cool outside, unusually cool for August and he shivers, naked except for his socks. Luckily Dee doesn’t catch him as he stands up to grab his bathrobe from the hammock. Once Mac’s tightened the ragged belt, he grabs Dennis’s robe and tosses it at his sleeping form.

“Dude, the fuck…” Dennis rubs as his bleary eyes, trying to blink Mac into focus. “Where you going?”

“Gotta shower.”

Dennis stretches, looks at Mac coquettishly, batting his eyelashes. “Come back to bed,” he whispers, biting his lip dangerously.

His dick leaps, but Mac refuses, shaking his head. “Dennis, it’s… It’s Sunday.”

“Oh. I see.” Dennis sits up on the air mattress, letting the sheets fall into his lap. His chest is naked and dimpled with goosebumps, nipples hard and pink. “I thought, maybe you wouldn’t have to do this today. Since, you know, we established that you’re gay beyond a reasonable doubt last night. With the blowjobs and everything. Which you seemed to enjoy, by the way.”

“Dennis. I… have to go.”

Dennis goes cold; it’s been a long time since Mac has seen him turn his anger off, letting it slip underneath his skin to seethe; he's much more prone to letting it out lately. It's worse than he remembers, but Mac silently gathers his least dirty clothes and heads to the shower, refusing to listen to the silence.

When he slips through the living room on his way out of the apartment, scrubbed clean, Mac chances a look at Dennis, who snarls, “I hope to God that He doesn't forgive you.”

Mac slams the door behind him and goes to church.

 

 

The confessional is dark and smells of incense and sour wine, and it comforts Mac as always. The smell alone is enough to alleviate the guilt that has moored in his stomach like an anchor.

"What do you have to confess, my son?" The priest’s voice is resonant in the wooden booth.

It’s the old one, the drunk one, Father Jim Lahey. Mac can tell by the voice: it's been ravaged by the drink and he should know, he can hear the same sour note in his own speech sometimes. He shrugs. Lahey’s good enough, closer to God than Mac will ever be. He takes a deep breath, and begins: "... I have given in to impure thoughts and desires, Father. I have lusted after a man, and I have lain with him, as with a woman."

"Son. The Bible counsels us to be  _ strong _ in the face of temptation.” Lahey pauses and his next words are stern and authoritative. “But you’ve confessed the same sin three times in one month."

"But that's how this works. I tell you my sins, say some prayers, and then they go away." That's what he's been doing all these years anyway, and it’s mostly worked.

The old drunk priest sighs. "The power of the Lord can only help you if you repent. But you can't continue to commit the same sin and be repentant."

Mac goes silent. "So, none of my prayers mean anything? I don't get like, credit for trying to control my thoughts and urges?"

“That’s not the purpose of confession, my son. Confession allow us--”

Mac's come here for salvation, not a sermon. He interrupts old drunk Lahey. "Look. Are you going to make me pray or not? Because if not I'd like another priest, please."

The elderly priest takes a sip of the communion wine he keeps stashed under his chair for times such as these; Mac can hear the liquor glug. "Fine. Ten Our Fathers, ten Hail Marys.”

“Wait. That’s it? Are you sure, Father?” That doesn't seem like much. That doesn't seem like nearly  _ enough. _

“Actually, you can just say the same prayers on your own the next time. I don’t technically have to know every time you engage in gay sex, Mac.” Another swig of communion wine goes down his throat as he says this, it’s loud and obvious in the close dark space.

“I mean, I was too poor to go to seminary school, so I guess I’m no expert in these things, but I thought your whole job was like, to listen to people’s sins? The last time I checked, gay sex is still a sin.”

The priest sighs. "My son, why do  _ you _ feel you need to confess these things?"

"It's in the Bible. Man shall not lay with man, Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve, all that stuff."

"Maybe it's not God's forgiveness you must seek. Perhaps you must learn to forgive yourself."

The words hit Mac like the Revelation. “But, the Bible, the Bible says--”

Father Lahey clears his throat. “The Bible says many things. It gave us the Ten Commandments but it also gave us the Song of Solomon.”

“Wait, what’s that?” Mac’s never heard of that part of the Bible before.

Lahey pauses a moment before he quotes a verse from memory: “The song of songs, which is Solomon’s. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is sweeter than wine… By night on my bed, I sought him who my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.” He recites the verse like a sermon, deep and resonant.

“That… That doesn't sound like the Bible.”

Mac hears Lahey take another swallow of the communion wine before he answers. “Ayyyye, it’s a part of the Old Testament, my son. Has been for three thousand years.”

The Communion wine sloshes again, then Lahey recites another verse: “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head it filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him,” the priest continues. “I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone. My soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s beautiful.” Mac whistles. He thought he knew the Bible, but  _ this _ , this was something else.

Lahey decides to let this instance of taking the Lord’s name in vain slide. “Yes, it has been considered a poetic masterpiece for thousands of years. It also reveals to us God’s blessing for the physical act of love.”

“They never taught us that book in Catholic school!”  _ Of course those frustrated nuns would skip over all the sex parts _ , he muses.

Lahey taps opens the screen that should be protecting the privacy of the penitent, then passes the bottle of Communion wine through. Mac thinks the stale wine tastes the way the confessional smells.

“Mac, my son,” Lahey begins. “There is much about the Bible that they don’t teach you in school. Maybe not even in church, either.” He reaches through the screen for the wine and Mac listens to him take a long pull before he continues with a sigh. “That’s the thing about Catholicism, really, it’s incredibly vague and no one quite knows what it all means.”

Mac listens, quiet as he and Lahey pass the bottle between themselves and the Father assures him that sodomites can go to Heaven. “Pope Francis and the Vatican have been increasingly accepting of gays... There are many gay people in our congregation. The Lord gives us love, we cannot control who He wants us to love, but we can make sure that we love well.” The old drunk priest swallows from the bottle of Communion wine before continuing, “God wants his children to find salvation. Not perfection. That’s not a condition of His love, Mac; if it was, then no one would ever be saved.”

“Are you sure, Father?”

“I’m sure, my son.”

“Cause if you’re wrong, and if it’s Judgement Day, and God is smiting me for gay sex, I am going to blame you.”

Lahey chuckles. “I think my conscience can take that.” He passes Mac the bottle. “Drink up, my son. You’re going to need it if I see you in hell.”

Father Lahey’s a drunk bastard, but he’s also a damned good priest. Mac exits the confessional blinking, head full of stale wine. The whole world seems brighter somehow and he’s pretty sure that the wine has nothing to do with it; it must be an act of God. God is great, indeed.

 

 

Dennis is tending bar when Mac arrives at Paddy’s, looking up when the bells chime like he’s been watching the door, like he’s been expecting this. He cracks open a beer, passing it to Mac like it’s any other day. Only the stiffness of his posture betrays the fact that it’s  _ not _ .

Mac clears his throat. “Hey.” 

Dennis doesn’t stop wiping down the bar, just raises his eyebrow in Mac’s general direction.

He takes another breath. He doesn’t know what to say next--every other time they’ve touched they haven't bothered to acknowledge it the next day. Mac is in unfamiliar territory: he wants to jump the border but doesn’t know how, doesn’t know where the line is. So he grabs the wrist Dennis is using to swipe the bar with a filthy rag. “Dennis.”

Dennis inhales sharply, his gaze flickering between Mac’s hand and his eyes.

“Dennis. Look, I---”

And of course that’s the instant that Dee and Charlie and Frank enter the bar. “Goddammit, Frank, I don’t know why  _ I _ have to be the one to play the whore again? I’ve been the whore before, I didn’t like it, and I won’t stand for it again.”

“I’m tellin’ you, Deandra, you gotta be the whore, you’re good at bein’ a whore!” Frank bellows, the frustration echoing in his voice.

Mac lets Dennis’s hand go, he lets the moment go. It’s the wrong thing to do, all he can do is wrong; Dennis turns from him with a sneer on his lips to open beers for the rest of the gang. Mac wishes he was man enough to do something,  _ anything, _ to make himself worthy of Dennis’s forgiveness, but he’s never before had to ask the Devil for deliverance, isn't sure where he should begin.

 

 

Dennis is stubborn as shit when he wants to be. For the rest of their shift, he pretends Mac doesn't exist. He flirts with the single female patron they have all night--she’s young, too young to be as rough around the edges as a piece of ripped and soggy cardboard--but she’s receptive to Dennis’s attention. It's not until Mac follows him into the storeroom for more limes that he catches him alone.

“What the fuck,” Mac accuses, “what are you doing out there?"

“Isn't it obvious? I'm gonna bang her.” He grabs the bag of limes off the shelf, which hangs heavy in his hands.

“Dennis. Why?” The question echoes between them, heavy as stone.

Dennis shrugs. “Might as well bang someone. You went to church again this morning. Got down on your knees in front of another man and renounced getting down on your knees for me last night and all the filthy words you said.” His anger detonates around them and fills the room like an explosion: “You’re not gonna touch me for weeks, OK,” (there’s hysteria in Dennis’s voice and his eyes are red and shining as he speaks), “and I’m no  _ saint,  _ god damn it, so fuck off and die and let me stick my dick into someone who won't pray the gay away in the morning, asshole.” 

Mac steps forward, between Dennis and the door, blocking the only mean of escape. He could throw a punch, he could throw a fit, but he knows the thread between them is full of knots and would dissolve completely if he does (that thing they say, about the broken links of a chain being the strongest, it’s a lie, they’re the weakest links, nothing more). “I want it, OK, Dennis?” It's the barest whisper. Mac tries again, louder. “I want it.”

Dennis laughs but there's no humor in it, it’s the laughter of a dying man, a man who knows he’s damned and doesn't care. “Sure, Mac. I’m sure Jesus won’t mind.”

“You don’t get it. I want your dick, and if I’m going to hell, this is probably going to be the least of my sins.” He kisses Dennis behind his ear, right over his pulse; Mac can feel the heartbeat quicken against his lips. “Beside, there’s like a whole chapter in the Bible about how awesome sex is” (he slides his mouth over to Dennis’s cheek) “as long as you’re faithful to each other, you’re still being faithful to God” (then his mouth slips onto Dennis’s and swallows his protestations).

To prove it, Mac recites the prayer he’d learnt in the confessional against Dennis’s lips:  _ Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is sweeter than wine… By night on my bed, I sought him who my soul loveth _ _.  _ When he recites it a second time, Mac rewrites the prayer slightly:  _ I sought him. And I found him, Oh God, I have found him who my soul loveth. And I’m not gonna let go now.  _ When he’s done reciting the blasphemous verse Mac grabs Dennis by the shoulders and dives into his mouth.

Dennis is taken aback, his whole body tense, but he relaxes into Mac’s kiss with a moan, lets his whole body crumble into Mac’s for support. “That’s it, that’s it,” Mac mumbles between kisses. They’re nothing, just nonsense words of encouragement, but Dennis dissolves against him, and it’s sweet, so sweet, sweeter than any alcohol and Mac’s tried them all.

The two of them kiss against the door until Dennis drags him to the desk, and drags Mac down with him--Mac lets himself collapse onto Dennis, lets himself take a mouthful of everything Dennis has on offer, doesn’t stop himself,  _ can’t. _

Then the door opens. “Stop right there!”

Charlie’s standing in the doorway, wearing stained khakis and a wrinkled button down. “Goddammit, Charlie, are you wearing your lawyering shirt?” Mac mutters. 

“Look, Mac, whatever you do, don’t admit that you used your superior physical strength to overpower a lesser man--”

“Oh my God, Charlie! For that last time, I am not  _ raping _ anyone! Jesus Christ, dude.” Mac sits up, his hands unconsciously swipe at his lips. He looks guilty,  _ is  _ guilty, and doesn’t give a damn. “You’re not my attorney.”

Dennis wickedly wipes his mouth as he meets Charlie’s eyes. “Charlie,” he murmurs, “it’s fine, it’s OK.”

And Charlie just stands there, his mouth gaping open. He looks at Mac with an accusation in his eyes, but Mac ignores him. When Charlie’s in lawyering mode, he exists in a completely different reality, and it’s best not to engage him. Instead, Mac gets up off the floor, then offers his hand to Dennis, helping him to his feet as Charlie watches. They both ignore the sad ragged girl at the bar for the rest of the night.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "that's the thing about catholicism, it's incredibly vague and no one really knows what it's all about" is a quote from "father ted", a 1990s BBC sitcom about three misfit priests in a remote parish in ireland. i highly recommend it and i think mac would love it despite all the blasphemy, so check it out if you haven't before.
> 
> obviously "father jim lahey" is a nod to trailer park boys, a show i love almost as intensely as i love sunny itself. i dunno, i wrote something another fic that ended sad and angsty and i just want my trash sons to be happy in this one, they've suffered enough. 
> 
> i completely bastardized the song of solomon to selfishly serve my purposes here. i am a complete atheist and it is beautiful to me. please read it in its entirety.


	16. but if you let me, here's what i will do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I know you been hurt  
> By someone else  
> I can tell by the way  
> You carry yourself
> 
> But if you'll let me,  
> Here's what I will do--  
> I'll take care of you
> 
> I've loved and I've lost  
> The same as you  
> So you see, I know  
> Just what you've been through
> 
> And if you let me  
> Here's what I will do--  
> I'll take care of you"  
> \--Gil Scott Heron, I'll Take Care of You  
> (listen to it. gil scott heron's voice is broken the entire track and it is a wonderfully codependent love song about mutual wounds bringing two people together, so macdennis)
> 
> warnings for anilingus (rimjobs) and full penetration. bad words, bad people, rape joke, blah blah blah. additional notes at end of chapter.

That night, Dennis crawls into his hammock, his body hanging right above Mac, who, like the immature asshole he is sometimes, cannot help but jab Dennis with his feet to make him pay attention.

"What do you want?" Dennis hisses.

"Come here,” Mac whispers.

"Dee's awake."

"Don't care." He’s pouting.

"Shh. Wait."

Sweet Dee's door opens, and she heads to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, she walks out in her bathrobe, hair done up in a towel, then stumbles to the fridge for one last beer. It's not until a few minutes after her door clicks closed that Dennis climbs out of the hammock and onto the mattress on top of Mac.

A kiss spills into his mouth like a shot of strong alcohol. He chokes on it, can't breathe around Dennis’s lips, and he doesn't care. Mac sucks on his tongue until his vision goes red and he’s on the edge of blacking out. He doesn’t want to risk exhaling and losing this completely.

Mac flips Dennis onto his belly, sucks a kiss from the nape of his neck all the way down to the bony protrusion at the base of his spine. He kisses each vertebrae all the way down Dennis’s back until he reaches the swell of his ass.

With greedy hands, Mac pries the two round cheeks apart. Dennis’s asshole is surrounded by a ring of fine hairs, so small and inviting, that Mac swallows and traces his tongue down the crack. It’s smooth and the tempting orifice is rough and sweet against his lips. He puts his thumb inside, lets Dennis wriggle against his face before removing it, replacing his finger with his mouth, tracing Dennis’s hot hole with his tongue. When Dennis moans, he buries his face between his asscheeks and pushes his tongue inside. There’s resistance, of course, but Mac persists, and eventually the muscle yields to him. He’s never done this before, but it seems _right,_ and dear God, it’s intoxicating; he could eat Dennis’s ass forever.

Dennis’s asshole is sweet like an overripe fruit or something about to go rotten, and Mac can’t get enough. His tongue pushes its way inside, and he swallows, biting down into the yielding flesh. Dennis yelps, and Mac takes it as a sign; lets him relax then pushes his tongue as far as it will go. He removes his mouth for a moment, spits on his hand, then inserts his index finger into Dennis’s yielding hole.

Two fingers. Mac spreads Dennis open, sticks his tongue in between the knuckles, and swallows. The sphincter is tight against his fingers and tongue, but he suckles Dennis’s asshole deeply until he whines and grinds up onto Mac’s face, so Mac slaps his ass (God, he can't help himself, the flesh is too warm, too inviting). “Bitch,” he says, “I’m going to fuck you now,” and there’s no lube anywhere in sight, so he spits a few times into his hand and rubs the slickness onto his dick. For good measure, Mac spits again, right onto Dennis’s hole, gets it nice and wet and shiny before he positions himself and pushes inside.

His asshole yields to Mac’s dick, because of course it does, this is what Dennis _wants_ , to be split open, split in two by Mac’s cock, goddamn it, if that’s what he wants that’s what he’ll get. Mac breathes deep, the head of his cock in the warm hot heat of Dennis’s whole body; he pushes down further and Dennis moans. He can't stand the soft stupid sound so he thrusts his cock in deeper; Dennis whines and Mac puts his mouth over his partner’s, lets Dennis taste the fragrant funk of his own asshole as Mac fills him up with his dick, inch by agonizing inch.

Suddenly, he’s buried to the hilt in Dennis’s ass, and Mac rolls his hips just to hear him whine. He adjusts the angle until he can feel the hard nub of Dennis’s prostate with the underside of his cockhead, then drives down against it. Dennis’s whole body constricts around him, and he knows he’s found the sweet spot.

“Not. Gonna. Let you. Come,” Mac grunts in time to his thrusts. “Not until. You say. You need me,” and he slides the length of his dick inside, rolling his hips from side to side, lingering. Dennis keens, his mouth is full of useless sounds, none of them quite the words Mac needs.

“Say you need me,” Mac breathes against his lips. “My cock--” he withdraws--”you can _feel_ my cock, can't you, bitch?” He punctuates the question with a brutal thrust into the core of Dennis, feels him shudder around his dick. Mac’s playing rough, too rough probably, especially since they’re using spit for lube, but Dennis won't admit it, no, he won't admit he needs Mac to make him feel something, anything. That’s what Dennis wants most of all, to _feel._

Mac’s impatient, he wants Dennis to break completely. As he thrusts back home, he slaps Dennis in the face; finally, those pleasure-glazed eyes focus, they look right at him. “Say it, you pussy, fucking _say_ it.” He slaps him again, his palm stinging against Dennis’s cheekbones, his cock burning in Dennis’s hot hot heat.

And Dennis _says_ it, by God, admits he needs Mac’s cock as much as Mac needs to fuck him. “I feel you inside me,” he breathes, “Jesus,” (he doesn't believe in Jesus, but Mac will take it, will take anything Dennis offers), “I _feel_ you,” and it’s enough, it’s too much. Mac roars, the rhythm of his hips increasing to a fever pitch as he slams into Dennis’s ass, and he takes it, the bitch; he takes Mac’s cock like he was born to do this, quiver around him, and Mac can't stand it anymore--he comes, flooding Dennis’s ass with his semen.

Dennis whines, the hand that’s been jerking his dick the whole time increasing to a frantic pace until he lets go too, shooting come all over his chest and Mac’s as he lets his orgasm spill between them. Mac collapses down into him, utterly boneless, utterly lost; all he can do is draw Dennis’s moan between his teeth, swallow it, feel it burst in his belly. It's too sweet, almost as sweet as the taste of his asshole itself, which lingers on Mac’s breath as he pushes his tongue into Dennis’s mouth, desperate to swallow him whole.

But Mac’s mouth is too small, he can't swallow Dennis completely and so this has to be enough: Dennis’s body yielding to his own, his semen stuck between his pecs, Mac’s own cum leaking from between his asscheeks in a slow and steady stream. He won't argue about how Dennis makes him sleep in the wet spot all night, it's only fair, Mac supposes, for the top to make sacrifices for his bottom. He can live with this.

 

 

Dennis sleeps next to him all night. He makes coffee for Mac in the morning with a shot of Kaluha and a shot of Jameson for good measure. They buy a newspaper on their way to open the bar and spend the morning looking over the classifieds for an apartment of their own.

Around noon, Charlie and Frank and Dee enter the bar, still arguing over who has to be the whore in their latest scheme.

“I told you guys I was no good at whoring!”

“Shut up, Dee. You're the reason we failed.”

“You’re a big whore, Deandra,” Frank roars. “How could you fuck this up?”

“Hey guys, take a seat,” Mac says, cracking open five beers, one for each of them. Dee and Frank and Charlie continue their argument, ignoring Dennis and Mac, who stand behind the bar, sipping their drinks until Dennis roars, “Sit down and _shut up!”_

“Oh my God! We’re busy! What!” Charlie protests, but they listen, accepting the beers Mac slides in front of them.

“Shut up! We’ve got something to tell you!” Mac announces.

“Hurry up, damn you!” Dee snarls.

“This is taking too damn long. Charlie, I'm gonna go back to--”

“No, nobody is going anywhere! We have something _important_ we want to tell you guys,” Dennis repeats with emphasis.

“Jesus, hurry _up,”_ Charlie groans.

Mac takes a deep breath. “Well, we’re gay.”

“With each other, just to be clear,” Dennis adds.

Charlie, Dee, and Frank roll their eyes, nonplussed.

“Yeah, whatever.”

“We already knew that.”

“We don't care.”

Mac cocks his head, and scrunches his eyebrows in confusion. “Wait, you knew about this?”

“Oh yeah, we’ve _always_ known,” Frank says.

“Yeah, boners, for like, ten years, at least.”

“Also, we don't care,” Charlie adds.

“Remember the time we were a gay bar and Mac pouted every time someone flirted with you?” Dee asks Dennis. “Do you guys remember that?” she asks Charlie and Frank.

“Oh my God, dudes, that was the worst,” Charlie agrees.

“Wait, you guys were a gay bar? When did this happen?” Frank shakes his head in confusion.  “Nobody told me about the gay bar!”

“Shut up, Frank. It was a long time ago,” Mac mutters under his breath. _Goddamn it, I can’t believe they noticed._

“I was kind of happy when it was all over,” Charlie says. “I mean, we went right back to being broke all the time, but at least we didn’t have to watch you acting jealous every night anymore.”

“Wait. What?” Dennis asks, slamming his beer onto the bar, incredulous. “For 10 years you guys knew about this? Why didn't you say anything?”

“The one time I said something, you guys broke up, making everyone miserable!” Dee shouts.

“Yeah, you guys can never break up again; it would really be terrible for us,” Frank says, sipping his beer.

“Oh, you know what was _actually_ the worst?” Charlie asks before answering his own question. “Was when Mac kept having all those gay crises and then,” (he turns to Dennis and points) “then, you’d hate the world until he started paying attention to you again. It is incredibly exhausting and frankly, we hate it.”

“So if you guys could stop doing that, well, _that_ would be great. For us,” Frank interjects.

“Yeah, Dennis mopes around on my couch for _days,_ critiquing my apple-peeling abilities while he watches those homerotic home movies you make. It's annoying and I hate it.”

“You think that’s bad! Mac comes and cleans our apartment! Gets rid of all the trash.”

“We _like_ the trash.”

“Charlie, we _love_ our trash!” Frank corrects. He turns and narrows his eyes at Mac. “We only let you do it because you’d just keep whining about how you think Dennis hates you the whole time if we didn't.”

“Nobody wants to hear that dude, it’s boring! So we let you take our trash but when you leave we get it back from the dumpster!”

“Wait, Charlie, if you knew, what was with all that rape shit?” Mac crosses his arms and squints, tapping his foot as he waits for an answer.

Charlie runs a hand through his hair, and lets out an embarrassed little laugh. “Oh, I've just been watching a lot of Law and Order: SVU. That show’s all _about_ rape, and I thought it might be a good time to expand my practice. Not too much of a demand for bird lawyers in this city, but people get raped _every day,_ you know?”

Suddenly Mac understands Charlie’s deal. “Wait. So you were going to frame me for raping Dennis so you could pretend to be a lawyer?”

Charlie nods. “Yeah, but I was going to get you off, so--”

“Oh my God dude, I am going to murder you!!” Mac lunges at Charlie, but Dennis hits him with the rolled up newspaper like he’s disciplining a badly behaved dog. Mac knocks the paper out of his hands instead; it falls to the floor right in front of Dee’s oversize feet, and she leans down to retrieve it.

“What’s this, the classifieds? You’re looking for an apartment together?” Dee’s voice is overly sweet. “Awww, I’m so glad you guys are taking this whole codependency thing a step further. Mostly I’m going to be really happy that you will no longer be banging in my living room.”

“Oh Dennis, you’re looking for an apartment?” Frank asks. “A place just opened up in me and Charlie’s building.”

“Yeah, you guys should check it out. It looks pretty good,” Charlie agrees. “They had to repaint it and put all new carpet, after that family was murdered there.”

“ _Brutally murdered,”_ Frank emphasizes.

Dennis rubs his forehead. “Frank, your building is a shithole and the landlord is an asshole.” He’s starting to get frustrated; his face and neck are turning red.

“Also I’m pretty sure your apartment building has a cat problem,” Mac adds, to demonstrate to Dennis he would never consider living in Frank and Charlie’s building, either. “The last time I was there, there were at least three cats in the couch. Where are they coming from?”

Frank looks Charlie in the eyes. “Hey Charlie, maybe Mac has a point. I been seein’ a lot of cats around lately. We should go get some dogs--vicious ones and train ‘em to eat the cats….”

“This is exactly why we will not live in your apartment building, guys,” Dennis snarls, the vein on his forehead starting to show. “You cannot get rid of your rat problem by training alley cats to eat them. You _absolutely_ cannot deal with your cat problem by introducing pit bulls into the toxic ecosystem that you call your apartment!”

And the gang drinks to that, finishing their beers and pouring a round of tequila shots to toss back in celebration. It's just after noon and they are already halfway to wasted with no plans of stopping anytime soon.

It’s not good and it’s not right but it _is_ , and it has taken Mac twenty years to accept that Dennis doesn’t make him a better man, isn't interested in forming Mac into a better version of himself; Dennis wants Mac as he is, nothing more. Maybe that’s wrong but every other man in Mac’s life has asked him to be someone he’s not: his dad wants him to be _hard_ when he’s too soft, God wants Mac to be pure when he’s no more than a sinner who can't help himself.

The gang clinks their glasses, tequila spilling onto their fingers as they down another shot. Mac will lick the spilled tequila off of Dennis’s lips. _This_ is as close to heaven as he’s likely ever going to get; he spreads Dennis wide and dives inside and Dennis only asks for more so Mac gives him everything he has.

Tomorrow, the fingertips on Dennis’s cheekbone might clench in a fist. They’re not good people, neither of them; they can’t change now. But Mac dares to hope that they will somehow manage to avoid breaking each other completely. They’ve managed this long.

 _The Devil wants me as is,_ Mac understands, and if God wants more, well then, He can wait. Mac might have another shot with Him in purgatory, but he can’t say the same for Dennis Reynolds--the man is damned for sure and if Mac is going to have him at all, this is only chance he’ll get. God wouldn’t want him to waste it.

_Amen._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THAT'S ALL FOLKS! i hope the ending didn't seem forced. i don't have access to the season 11 episodes right now, but i did get to see the whole season once through when it aired. though i ended this fic at season 10, i did want to acknowledge season 11, ergo the gang's non-reaction to mac & dennis's relationship and the reference to the apartment in frank and charlie's building. even if it diverges from canon, i hope it rings true to you guys.
> 
> well. when i began this story i didn't expect it to grow into a whole novella. thanks everyone for sticking around for all 50,0000+ words! extra points if you read them ALL. thank you for all your comments and encouragement! it's been real. now i have to drink my pitcher of watermelon margaritas and toast myself to my very first finished piece of prose EVER. pour yourself a drinky-poo, you deserve it for making it all the way to the end!


End file.
